


Reprisal

by Vixx2pointOh



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: A little history, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Assassin!Felicity, Blow Jobs, Castles, Enemies to Lovers, Enemy Lovers, English Setting, Eventual Smut, F/M, Not-Really-Slow Slow Burn, Oliver leaves his mark, Oral Sex, Revenge, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Smut, Templar!Oliver, You dont need to know about Assassins, depictions of violence, olicity - Freeform, people die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 11:02:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 80,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9892529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vixx2pointOh/pseuds/Vixx2pointOh
Summary: The year is 1150 and England is plagued by war.Felicity, an Assassin who is but a whispered rumour among many, has set her eye of revenge on Oliver Queen, the son and allegiant of the Templar Order, no matter the cost.Nothing is True and Everything is Permitted.****AUTHOR NOTE****I am so sorry to the readers of this fic.  Real life has been crazy of late and something has to give.  For now, unfortunately it is my muse for this fic.  It has, for the foreseeable future, up and left. I am battling to write the last remaining chapters but sadly I cannot stick to an update schedule for it.I am so very sorry.





	1. Introduction

****

 

 **Author Note:**  
So there is this thing called history…  
Please note that this story is weaved through an actual period in history known as the Anarchy, however you do not need to be a history buff.

If I specifically mention the outside world (beyond the very fictional characters) then what I’m referring to (for the most part) actually happened.

However, the settings of this story are also fictional, Starling does not actually exist (obviously, but I thought it necessary to point out). You will find a map if you are so inclined to care about where Starling (and to a lesser degree Havenrock) are situated.

I do not claim to be a history major nor am I extremely well versed in the ways of secret societies. However I have done my best to keep this historically accurate while still telling an original story.

I will adopt the speech patterns and nuances of the time period as best I can and I hope that this adds to the story rather than detracts from it.

Any errors are, I suppose, mine and you can, I suppose, call me up on them should you wish.

If you happen to be an 12th Century English History buff, hit me up on Twitter @someonesaidcake.

I feel it necessary to point out that this – at least in the beginning – is NOT a love story; and it may paint certain characters in lights to which you have never seen them before – that’s part of the fun of an AU though right? I still hope that you are able to see the underscoring character(s) you know and love.

As always, I spell the Queen’s English (which in this case seems particularly fitting).

Now, let us begin…

 

**~The Maps~**

**Note:** I will add to this floorplan and update the image when appropriate to do so.

 


	2. Aligned

****

**August 1152: Starling, England**

_Nothing is True and Everything is Permitted_  
They were words she had sworn her allegiance to, a creed she had once lived by without deviation. Once.

Felicity watched as the rich red blood seeped into the pores of her hand, trailing slowly down the lines of her palm. It was the first time she had noticed how the crimson fluid moved slower than water, pooling into spheres that would indelibly stain her hands. Not that her hands had ever really been unstained.

The room showed signs of the fight he had put up, this had not been a clean kill worthy of assassin such as herself, but this kill had not been sanctioned by the Brotherhood, it had not been done out of duty or instruction. Felicity had killed as an act of reprisal. The blood on her hands was taken in revenge.

The Brotherhood had forbade her to seek revenge on Oliver Queen, the famed military officer and son of a Grand Master Templar for his part in the killing of her parents.

Their murder had aligned two lives and set in motion a sequence of events that had all lead up to this moment.

She looked up, the banging on the outside of the chamber doors pulling her from her trance. She knew it was time to go and she had escaped from more heavily fortified areas before – but, as she glanced downwards she knew escape would not be on the cards this time.

The ornate gold handle of the dagger embedded in her side was the last thing she saw before she crumpled in a heap onto the cold, hard stone floor.

_Nothing is True and Everything is Permitted_

* * *

  
**October 1150: Havenrock, England**

Felicity stood amongst the skeleton of a house now draped in old ashes, cooled with the passing of time but marred with the scars of flame and violence that had reduced her family home to nothing more but twisted beams and burnt out relics of her past.

Her blue eyes were now drawn and narrowed, veiled behind a cloud of black. She had long ago lost the emotion required to cry, it having been purged from her as a necessity to be able to carry through the destiny that lay before her feet.

But, standing on grass scolded black and in the midst of crushed stone and burnt lumber, she felt a singular tear fall from her stark blue eyes.

“Who?” she asked, her voice cold, bitter  
“Your Father was loyal to the Empress Matilda, those loyal to King Stephen number greatly, the Templars themselves stand behind him” a voice answered, his tone hushed, his eyes guarding across the ruined area  
“And my mother, what of her? This was not her war” Felicity scathed, blinking across at her brother of the blade  
“I do not know, I know only that I am sorry I could not have prevented her death” Cooper responded, his eyes weary

“You could not have known brother, I know you grieve as I do” Felicity replied, her hand coming to rest against his shoulder “But I must ask you again, who? Who did this?”

“Whispers say the order came from The Duke of Starling, he knew your father was Mentor of the Order and the War allowed him to disguise this as political” Cooper replied, his eyes hidden under shadow the cowl of his hood cast

“Where is Robert Queen?” Felicity thumbed the length of her hidden blade, silently promising it would soon shed blood  
“The order was rumoured to be carried out by his son, The Earl, as an act of allegiance to the Templar Order. His prowess is feared among the Brotherhood, they will forbid reprisal Felicity. You should not have returned to this place”

It had been a fortuitous return from a task asked of her in Nottingham that saw her stood here, albeit days too late to stop it.

Her head twisted upwards, a breath heavy on her lips as smouldering ash floated through her blonde hair.  
“They will forbid it?” she spat  
“There is more to this war Felicity, we are not…”  
“Then we shan’t tell them”  
Felicity walked from her friend’s side, mounting her steel-grey horse.  
“Where are you going?” Cooper asked, laying the field lily he had been holding atop the mound where Felicity had laid out two stone crosses

“To find Oliver Queen and kill him” her reply came with a sense that such an event was already written in stone.

She would have her reprisal. Oliver Queen would die by her hand.

***~*~*~***

As they rode the journey south the cost of the Anarchy blatantly marred the countryside. Castles stood as broken rubble in the background, testimony to the ferocity of the fighting that had plagued the country for years too numerous to hold in one’s hand.

England had not seen peace since 1135 when Stephen, the late King Henry’s nephew, seized the throne at his passing. Felicity had been painfully young when word spread across the land of such a treachery. The lines were drawn, the Brotherhood taking the side of the Empress Matilda as Henry’s only legitimate heir after his son William’s death aboard the _White Ship_ , and as Henry so recognised as his successor.

The Templars chose the side of Stephen. As a well-established figure in Anglo-Norman, the son of a powerful count of Northern France and the grandchild of William the Conquer, it was Stephen who had the backing of the church and therefore the backing of the Templar Order through his brother the Bishop of Winchester.

It was this stance that pitted Assassin against Templar more ferociously than times past as one sought to liberate and one sought to control.

***~*~*~***

The ride to the outskirt village of Starling took near on 5 hours and both horses showed the signs of exertion, rolling the bit around their jaws as their riders finally allowed them to rest by a small bramble atop a rolling hill.

The sun was just starting to set in the distance, casting its lavender and peach hues across the clouded sky.

The castle stood like a beacon in the distance, grander in size and stature than any they had passed by on their way. It sat out on two islands in the middle of an inlet that was too shallow and had an entrance too narrow for any vessel to travel in through it, providing a vantage point that could not be matched.

“I will see what I can find out about our Lord Queen, but if his reputation does him justice this will not be an easy feat” Cooper spoke, sheathing his hidden blade behind his billowed sleeve.  
“When have you ever known me to prefer the easy task?” Felicity replied, the crease of her lip folding up into a knowing smile

“In the years I have known you since you and I were but children of 10, the easy path has never been your first choice”  
“Then you ought not expect that it would be now” she replied with a short nod of her head.

She pulled back her cowl and set about folding tiny daggers into the pouch at the small of her back, veiled by her long, thicket-green coat.  
“I’ll venture into the town to find lodging and see how those he lords over feel about him. I need to know more about the man who would set a flame of war between us. Meet me back here at sunrise”

“Be safe sister” Cooper pronounced as he offered his hand for her to mount her horse once more  
“As should you brother” she answered, pulling her own weight onto the saddle

Cooper took a heavy intake of air as he slapped the hind of the animal seeing it, and Felicity, on their way. He would wait out some more time on the hill so that they would not be seen riding together from this point onward.

He sat laden with a sigh onto the ground, crushing the long grass underneath before he brushed road dust from his boot. It had been some time since the two old friends had come together; her path taking her deep into Stephen’s fortified cities to gather what information she could and assist the rebellion in the south-west of England which led to Matilda’s invasion of the same in the year prior; and his path keeping him closer to home, crossing the channel into Normandy only once some six months ago.

The two had grown together since childhood, both foreseen as outcasts of the Brotherhood, her for her gender and him for his lineage – however they fought for what recognition and place they had gained, albeit one that was not appreciated by all within the ranks.

* * *

**[The Next Day]**

It was just shy of the rooster crows when the two friends met amongst the frost-tipped grass and heavy fog.  
“What did you find brother?” Felicity asked, her eyes roving across the towers of the castle that pierced through the fog like knife tips

“Nothing good, there is no way into that fortress Felicity, you should make your journey to London to seek counsel with the Mentors, or return to your post and I will wait my time here to see if an occasion outside the walls presents itself and I will-“  
“No” Felicity snapped, jarring her head back towards Cooper as her horse beat his hoof down into the white-veiled grass “you will swear an oath to me now that you will not spill his blood”

The two locked eyes, neither blinking away.  
“Swear it, as my loyal friend, my _brother_ , swear it. Oliver Queen’s blood will be shed by my hands alone”  
Cooper, sensing there was no ground to be gained in the argument, dutifully nodded.  
“Swear it by your words” Felicity urged, her eyes stiff with resolution  
“I swear it. His death will be yours”  
Felicity took a shallow breath and turning her sight back towards the castle she nodded slowly  
“Now, tell me about this fortress”

“The inner barbican has only gated drawbridges for access, through the mill first. If you can pass through these the main gate then travels through the stables and barracks, you will not come through there unnoticed” Cooper started as he dismounted and knelt down beside a worn patch of dirt, bare of any vegetation

He pulled a small, serrated dagger from the sheath and his waist and scratched it across the dirt, etching in the outline of Verdant Castle as Felicity crouched beside him.

“The walls are too new and high to climb and even if by some grace of god we can, there is not one place that would not be seen by another” he continued, drawing ‘X’s at every spot where a lookout would be placed, resulting in a numerous display across each elbow of the walls.

“The moat surrounding the islands is too deep to be waded. If you were to swim it the only access is up into the gardens which still put us outside the walls” he dutifully marked the right side of the castle  
“There are steps here that lead into the Outer Bailey but the gate is locked each evening and not opened until well after daybreak. I am told there is another passage that comes out under the drawbridge to the Gloriette” another small mark on his makeshift map “but the door, I am told, only opens from the inside and it is an unknown passage. There is not one place we could enter that we would not be seen before we could make it to the Gloriette where his chambers are”  
“So, you are saying it will not be easy?” Felicity smiled as she tipped her head towards him, her chin rested on her shoulder  
“I am saying it will not be possible”  
“Then we shall have to go through the front gate”  
“I told you, there is by no means that we will get through them and take a second breath in the inner bailey air”  
“But they will open their gates to us” she smiled as she stood and walked over to her horse

Felicity pulled a folded declaration of a ball to be held that night at the castle from her saddlebag and handed it to Cooper who allowed his eyes to scroll over it quickly.

“We will attend this?” Cooper asked, a breeze rustling across the crumpled parchment in his hands  
“I will attend that” Felicity corrected  
“You would go unescorted? That will bring you attention you can ill afford” he gaped  
“Attention is precisely what I want” she replied, slowly letting each word skate from her plump lips

“And what then, you will take his life in front of all those crowds?”  
“I do not mean to cut his life short tonight brother”  
“Then what purpose would this serve?” he asked pressing the parchment into Felicity’s arm

Felicity took a slow and deliberate breath, letting the cool air swirl and float through her nose and fill her lungs as she closed her eyes with a heavy lid.  
“My father was a clever man. He kept me as a maidservant in his home for many years so no enemy would know he had a child. He planted whispers of a son to ward off any idea that I might share his blood. He was an enigma of secrets and could hide in the broad of day. If The Duke and his Earl knew of my father then it was only because his name was betrayed by one of our own”  
Her eyes slowly opened as she released another slow breath, aware of the gravity in her words.

“You know what it is you are saying?” Cooper asked, his tone seeded with concern  
“I do. My father was betrayed by someone who wears a cloak as we do and I mean to find out by whom” she replied softly, her heart sore for the loss of her mother most of all

“And you think he will so readily tell you?” Cooper remarked, his tone seeped with sarcasm  
“All men relinquish their secrets eventually” Felicity replied as she mounted her horse, her eyes never leaving off the castle in the distance

“The Brotherhood would never allow this, to go and make yourself so visible”  
“Then they shall not know of it” she replied, her eyes glassed and stern as she looked down from her perch at him  
“This is foolhardy even for you. Stay the week, perhaps he will leave himself vulnerable and then perhaps you will have your moment to strike”  
“No brother, I do not wish death to come quickly to him” she spoke as she straightened her lip and lifted her chin  
She breathed slowly, taking in the scented wildflowers that grew in bunches nearby and letting her voice steady along with her resolve.

“First I will take his heart as my captive, then take his soul as my prize and when I see my betrayal of him etched into each fleck in his iris, then, and only then, will I take his life as my reprisal”

“Then you will not do this alone” Cooper replied, mounting his own dusted-white horse  
“I could not ask this of you, for I know not where it will lead” Felicity replied, her eyes softening as she looked across at him with endearment

“You do not ask it, you need never ask it”  
“Cooper” she sighed his name, the sound of it falling from her lips such a rarity as she so often only referred to him as brother “you are my most dearest friend, I should not make this your load to bare also”  
“I will follow you to the gates of purgatory, or in this case Verdant Castle” he smiled softly as he nodded to it in the distance

The two stood silently atop their still horses contemplating the path that lay before them.  
“You will need to find something to wear, something more befitting a lady” Cooper quipped as he started his horse on a slow walk down the rolling hill  
“And what of you brother, what will be doing?” Felicity called out after him  
“I will need to find a date of course”

***~*~*~***

The night air was thick with barely a cloud in the sky as each luminous star hung like trapped candles against such a heavenly curtain of black.

Felicity’s shoes tapped softly against the cobblestone path, her habit to walk like the air swept between her feet and the ground so ingrained within her that she could not dismiss it.

Her court dress was a red as the first drop of blood, with strands of fine black silk stitched as ribbons running down it. Gold embellishment framed the neckline falling down into the front brocade, and snipped in at the cap of the trumpeted sleeve.

Her hair fell loose down her back, fluttering lightly in the crisp salt-touched breeze with a only a simple maiden’s headdress of gold net and cord atop it.

It had been sometime since her face was so exposed to the world that she almost stumbled in her resolve as she stepped towards the gate.

Felicity knew once she walked through them and over the threshold of this vast castle she would no more be able to hide her face. The mask she would wear would be her own skin without a cowl to shield her.

“My Lady are you awaiting your escort?” a page asked politely with a tip of his hat  
“I came unescorted” she replied softly, her eyes softening in the glow from the candle lamps that lit the inner bailey pathways

The page stepped back, his eyes pouncing to and fro, searching for an escort that wasn’t there.  
“Perhaps I may escort you to the great hall” he finally spoke, when no other figures grew out from the shadows  
“I thank you” Felicity replied, stifling her usual refusal to take help from anyone

The walk through the expertly maintained gardens was some 500 steps at an easy pace and was just as Cooper had described it. The estate house stood to the right of her pathway, majestic and gentile in its kindly construction of sun-baked bricks. Felicity imagined that the other side, veiled from her view, would overlook the beautifully reflective lake. There was no doubt that this is where the family lived and likely where soldiers were forbade from going.

The steps up to the castle were heavy river stones, beat into shape by countless hours of slow and tiresome work by stonemasons. The doors were heavy oak, varnished with thick, rich auburn which glistened amongst the firelight. Felicity was rarely afforded the slow pace of a maiden to appreciate such things as the colour of lacquer on wood, but it was all information she slowly folded away in case it one day became necessary to know it.

The Great Hall lived up to its name, high chandeliers swept down from the ceiling in steeped order. Tapestries, some many years old, hung from beams and great stone archways fanned out to the other areas that will brimming with people.

Felicity took a breath, the light so at odds with her shadowed life that it was almost blinding. She thanked the page as she pulled back the arm that had threaded through the crook of his elbow.  
“Enjoy the festivities my lady” he spoke before scurrying back out the door.

Felicity’s eyes walked through the crowd of people, smiling only briefly when she saw Cooper fraternising with a particularly well-endowed brunette in a slender-fitting purple court gown. He had found his date after all.

He flashed a quick wink in her direction, signalling his eyes remained on her should something happen.

Her eyes then travelled up to the grand staircase, balconies running along either side of the entrance and coming down to a landing before merging into a splaying stone staircase draped in heavy red rugs.

It took only a moment to find him as he stepped out from behind the obscurity of a column at the corner of the balcony, a tall, waif of a lady draped from his arm, the pair wearing almost identical scowls.

  
***~*~*~***

“Your party awaits you Laurel” Oliver gritted, his jaw locked in its tenseness  
“I ask you that you call me by my title, I am a Lady of this castle am I not?” Laurel bit back her thin lips sneering at Oliver’s words  
“You are within these walls at my mother’s invitation alone”  
“Not by yours my Lord?” she jeered  
Oliver turned, his eyes void of affection

“You ask questions for which you already know the answer. You are here by the grace of my mother’s fondness to the past and no other reason” Oliver replied, his words laced with snide

“I will see you die a lonely old man” she snipped, pulling her arm from the crook of his elbow as she marched towards the stairs  
“Enjoy your ball” Oliver smiled, almost enjoying the flustered way she joined with her sister’s arm at the top of the landing, their expensive gowns a display of gaudy opulence when so many subjects went without bread.

She had requested – demanded, if he were to be truthful – a ball to celebrate something Oliver could not recount, insisting that only those who held peerage titles be allowed to attend.

Oliver had given her a ball, trimmed with all the finery afforded to him, but – with a hidden glint of satisfaction in the blue of his eyes – he had invited anyone who wished to attend from across the county.

He held no affection for the one who had once vied for his attentions and, his words had been true, she stayed on within the walls of the castle to satisfy his mother alone.

Oliver’s eyes traversed the crowds that milled around below him. His head ached to be back in his chambers to pour over the many plans and maps that littered the worn oak desk in the room adjoining his bedroom. He was aware that many days had passed since he had sent his squire Roy, a trusted young man, to Havenrock to report on a matter most pressing to his mind. That he had not yet returned weighed heavy across Oliver’s brows.

His eyes roved over nobility swarmed to the left of the room and the simple folk, like quiet sheep, to the right until his eyes fell on a maiden dressed in rich red, with locks of golden silk, stood in the middle like an island between two seas, alone and – his eyes could tell it even from this distance – beautiful.

“It is good to see you emerge from your chambers My Lord” a kindly voice spoke from behind his shoulder  
His mind in no state to play pleasantries with his friend, he leaned back, his eyes still affixed on the maiden and asked “who is she?”  
John leaned forward, his eyes finally settling in where he believed Oliver’s were anchored.  
“The maiden in red My Lord?”  
“Yes, her, and polite company aside call me Oliver, we are like brothers are we not?”  
“I do not recognise her from the village, perhaps she came with someone?”  
“I do not see an escort near her, find out from the gate keepers”  
John backed away, catching the attention of a nearby Page with a wave of his hand. He leaned in issued the instructions to the young man and watched as he ran off to gain the answer as quick as his feet could carry him.

“Careful brother, the heat of your gaze may cause her dress to combust, or is that the point?” Thea remarked, her glazed lips pouting into a wistful grin as her fingers walked across Oliver’s shoulder  
“Should you not be in bed dear sister?” Oliver smiled, glancing down at his young sister, dressed in a gown of ivory and gold  
“Mother has let me stay as long as I wish it” she quipped, with a slow blink of her dark lashes  
“That is not surprising” he laughed, a rarity of a sound

“Who is she?” Thea asked, folding a finger through her chestnut locks  
“I do not know” Oliver replied, his hands balancing against the engraved balcony balustrade  
“She is very beautiful”  
“I had not noticed”  
“You cannot lie to your sister”  
Oliver smiled pleasantly, his sister in recent times the only one who could bring forth any joyous emotion from him

“You are drawn to her?”  
Oliver opened his mouth to speak, but quickly drew his lips closed again.  
“I shall find out who she is for you brother” Thea remarked, looking back only briefly as she walked swiftly towards the stairs, moving too fast for Oliver to stop her

***~*~*~***

“That is an exquisite necklace” Thea spoke as she stopped in front of Felicity and glanced down at the delicate sun charm hung on a necklace of gold chain  
Felicity dipped her body in a small gesture of respect.  
“It was my mother’s” Felicity replied, her voice a practiced soothing tone  
“Your mother has fine taste my Lady” Thea smiled, touching a finger to the waved lines of the charm  
“Forgive my correction, but I am no lady, just a simple traveller”  
“My mother insists that neither money nor family title alone make a lady”  
“What then must one possess?” Felicity asked, her painted lips smiling as the question left them  
“Poise, wit and beauty” Thea shrugged, rattling the words off that she had heard a million times  
“Then I am honoured you think me one of those” Felicity replied in a tone befitting such a compliment – her mother’s training in such ways of nobility not lost to Felicity completely

“I think you all of those” Thea smiled, her eyes dancing about with regaled wonderment  
“You treat a stranger as myself with too much flattery my lady”  
“Then we shall have to be friends” Thea grinned as he hands slapped together “What is your name?”  
“Felicity”  
“What a beautiful name. Does it mean anything?”  
“Happiness, roughly translated”  
Thea let an easy smile float across her lightly stained lips “It suits you”  
“You are too kind, but I’m afraid to wonder what brings you to talk with me?”  
“Anyone who can gain the attention of my brother Lord Brooding must be someone worth my time” Thea replied with a quick snap pf her left shoulder

“I am not familiar with that Lord” Felicity replied, despite the fact she knew exactly who the young spirt of a girl in front of her was sister to  
Thea touched a hand to Felicity’s shoulder, causing it to go rigid almost immediately before Felicity willed it to relax in case such a gesture frightened the young girl.

It seemed Thea did not even notice the flashed crack in Felicity’s demeanour as she slid a finger past Felicity’s face and angled it, conspicuously, up at the balcony where Oliver stood, his gaze still upon Felicity.

“Perhaps you know him by his more appropriate name, The Earl of Starling, although he hates that title perhaps a little more than he does Lord Brooding” Thea giggled, rolling her eyes in youthful abandonment  
“Your name for him does seem to serve him well” Felicity replied with kindly smile as she watched Oliver perhaps a few moments longer than polite company would deem fit

Despite been caught staring, and surprisingly to Felicity, Oliver did not divert his gaze for even a moment. Where most men would have blinked away, fidgeted with their smock or sparked a conversation with someone close by, Oliver continued to watch her.

His eyes were like anchors, thrown and caught against her, the pull of which was unavoidable. There was only a slight tip at the corner of his mouth, although whether such was evidence of a smile or of distrust, Felicity could not say.

“I have decided on names for everyone that resides within these walls, there is after all little else to occupy my time with”  
Felicity nodded her head, once, politely. Thea was but a child of 14, she would not have known a world without skirmish, a fact Felicity only considered in that moment.  
“And what of the men that stand beside your brother?” Felicity asked, twisting her head just a fraction to glance back up and the two men, who she already knew the names of, standing to either side of Oliver – although stepped back from him.

“The one to the right I call the Rook because he does so resemble a tall and solid castle” Thea explained, her finger dancing up at the tall richly-dark skinned John Diggle.

Felicity knew both him and the General that stood to the right of Oliver, Slade Wilson. Cooper had advised Felicity about these men on their ride down. Both men were trusted advisors and respected military men whose reputations, much like Oliver’s, was known far.

The more brutal of the two, Slade Wilson was loyal to the Templar Order. Although not a sworn member he was a Brute used in whatever task someone deemed fit. The other, the Rook was spoken of as a fair and strong man and one not under the palm, at least not willingly, of the Order. This was a fact that Felicity found particularly perplexing, both as to why he would not write his name in their ledger and as to why Oliver, a sworn allegiant, would allow such an outsider to hold a rank amongst his highest.

“And the other?” Felicity asked, her eyes tracking across to Slade  
“I call him the Knight”  
“Because he is worthy?”  
“No, because he is dark” Thea replied ominously, her sparking dissipating for just a few moments before it returned  
“You enjoy chess?”  
Thea nodded, the exuberance returning to the gesture.  
“If your brother is to be the King in your chess game, then who would be the Queen who does so dutifully protect him?”  
“He has yet to find her”  
“Forgive me if I speak out of turn my Lady, but was there not a woman on his arm this very night?”  
“You must mean her Lady Long Face, although it’s best you don’t call her that, I am told she is most unpleasant about it. She does not get a piece on my chessboard”  
Felicity swallowed the laugh that was threatening to build up, a break in her practiced and stoic wall.

“But why must we waste such time on these people, come, you shall meet my brother” Thea looped her arm through Felicity’s and took a step towards the sweeping stone staircase.

“Perhaps my Lady, you could relay to your brother that should he want for an audience with me that he may approach me himself” Felicity spoke coyly as her eyes tracked up to Oliver’s and held his gaze  
“It would only be proper” she spoke softly, the words almost lost amongst the crowd of noise.  
“I think I will” Thea responded with a gleaming smile before she headed, alone, towards the staircase, looking back only briefly to flash Felicity a weightless smile.

The smile of a child who had not a real care in the world.

A smile Felicity had not possessed for as far back as she could easily remember.

It was to be a shame that such a smile would fade more sooner than it ought, likely by Felicity’s own doing.

 


	3. Gambit

 

“You must talk to her my brother, she’s truly quite charming” Thea gushed as she sauntered around the back of Oliver  
“And you are to be a good judge of that?” Oliver smirked, his eyes flicking back momentarily to catch Thea’s as she skulked around behind him  
“Her name is Felicity, Latin for happiness” Thea shrugged, as though she had been aware of that knowledge her entire life

Oliver smiled before glancing back down to the place his eyes had left Felicity, only to now find that space replaced by a pious older man and his voluptuous wife. Oliver’s brows tweaked at the sudden change and his smile quickly pinched into a pursed-lip frown as his eyes roved like a spooked horse through the crowds.

“Over by the portrait of father, next to the dining hall” Thea whispered, leaning her chin against Oliver’s shoulder  
Oliver considered for a moment about rejecting Thea’s (correct) assumption that he had been looking for Felicity, but when his eyes finally landed on that glossy golden river of hair, he forgot all presumed offence and the smile slowly drew back across his lips.

“If you don’t speak with her Oliver, you will regret it”  
Thea drew back, placing a soft kiss against Oliver’s cheek before she stepped away, leaving the words echoing through his brain

“She came alone sir, on foot say’s the page that met her at the front gate. He remembers her because he says she walked from the shadows without a sound” John spoke, his tone hushed, aware that the stone walls of this castle had ears always at the ready  
“She is staying in town?”  
“It appears so”  
“Did he note anything else?”  
John shook his head slowly.  
“My Lord, she could be anyone”  
The seriousness in his voice made Oliver’s smile perk up fuller.  
“You think her a spy?” he jested  
“I think we do not know who she is Oliver” John replied, his words now for a concerned friend over a Lord  
“Perhaps I should go found out then”  
John dipped his head in a slow nod before he stepped back from the balustrade and gestured for Oliver to walk past.

***~*~*~***

Oliver’s gaze didn’t deviate from its course even when he was accosted by a noble from a nearby borough who was seeking an alliance Oliver wouldn’t have granted him anyway. The snub was noticed by those that spoke in hurried whispers at it, but Oliver was unrelenting in his advance – despite the attention this drew.

“I must apologise for my sister accosting you before my lady, she is young and impetuous” Oliver spoke quietly over Felicity’s shoulder, his breath fanning over her décolletage  
“Such youth and innocent enthusiasm is rare these days, you need not apologise for it” Felicity hummed in response, keeping her eyes locked forward, scrutinising the art work in front of her  
“She will be most pleased” Oliver replied, a thread of rasp caught in his tone

Felicity turned slowly, her hair brushing against his hand which hovered mere inches from her waist. The sensation of his sent wicked flashes through Oliver’s vision of her naked body underneath him, her hair falling softly over her breasts with his fingers roughly entwined in the nape of her neck, those sinfully swollen lips eagerly breathing his name.

“My Lord?” Felicity spoke, yanking Oliver abruptly from his devilish thoughts  
“My apology Felicity” her name floated from his lips like a soft autumn breeze and he longed to say it again, just to feel that once more “my mind wandered for a moment”  
“I bore you so soon?” she blinked, catching the heavy glow from the chandelier above deep into her cloudless blue eyes  
“Not at all, in fact I find myself drawn quite completely to you”  
Felicity drunk in the comment as she noticed the way his eyes buried into her own and his lips stayed just fractionally open once the words had danced from the top of them.

She had not expected him to be quite so blunt in his affection, everything she had been led to believe had him as a walled off anomaly, and yet here he was confessing things that decorum dictated were best left for darkened hallways and quiet chambers.

“You flatter me more than my station requires my Lord” Felicity breathed, dipping her chin kindly  
“But not more than your beauty justifies”  
His eyes would not let off her, as though he was watching for a blush as any young maiden ought.

Felicity turned away, the burning twist of hate grinding in her soul too strong for her to feign the sweet response his eyes searched for.

“Your home is quite beautiful” she spoke, keeping her head turned away from his as her eyes took in the smallest details of the room around – the beams were thick and dark-amber in colour, even at their brightest the chandeliers kept shadows in the eaves; meaning, should she need to, she could hide out of sight up there.

“Stones and wood” he replied as his eyes followed the gentle wave of her hair  
“You speak as someone who lives in a sty, when so many would wish for a place such as this”  
Felicity bit back her words and lowered her eyes. She had spoken brashly, just letting a sneak of her true feelings show through. Her mind scourged her for the slip, no noble took kindly to their nobility or _charity_ being questioned.

“You are right, please forgive me” he avowed, his hand twisting into blank space between them

She had not expected that from him, least of all because he seemed to say it with a thick thread of sincerity. She swallowed back any ounce of confusion that might have girded her features as she looked up and offered him a purposefully fragile smile.

“I spoke out of turn my Lord, I am sorry”  
“Don’t be, your candour is refreshing”

“Do you like art?” Oliver asked, watching as Felicity’s eyes lingered across the tapestries  
“I was never one for it in my youth, but I have grown to appreciate the time that someone has spent to create such things” Felicity said quietly as she ran an idle hand through the lower lengths of her hair  
“I am not a patient man, is it a virtue that you possess?”  
“I do hope so, the winner in a game of chess is usually just the one who kept their eye on the game the longest”  
Felicity let the double meaning of her words float carelessly through the air and pluck a soft smile from her lips.

“Ah, chess, the game of nobles and intellectuals, it is no wonder my sister is fond of you, she plays the game most days in the garden. You may have seen the gardens on your arrival, my mother is quite fond of them”

Felicity pushed the bow of her top lip out no more than a hairs breadth as her eyes softened, in an attempt to hide the swelling distain she felt behind them.

“My Lord, it was dark when I arrived the lamps along the pathway lit up very little of your gardens”  
Oliver leaned closer, she thought for a moment he might be testing her so see if she flinched in his presence, it was a move she understood and it was not about dominance or fear, but rather, it was about control. Oliver Queen was familiar with woman who would swarm at his feet and part their legs in a candlelit hallway just to gain his affections even if it were for only a rushed and tawdry moment.

She could not fault them though, for all the vile she saw, there was no denying that he was quite the _accomplishment_ to bed. But Felicity was not here to capture his attention for a moment and enjoy the sexual gratification of a fast fuck against whatever place he would likely pin her. Felicity needed to find her way into his graces, she needed his ear and to be his confidante if she was ever to find out the truth.

“You will have to see them sometime” Oliver whispered the words into her ear as he hovered his lips above her like a ghost  
“It seems we have drawn attention my Lord” Felicity hushed as she took a step back, aware of the eyes that roved in their direction

Oliver locked his eyes with hers, the deep blue of them reminding him of folklore tales of mermaid pools seeking to entrap sailors that stared too long at them, fanciful stories that the longer he stared at her the more he imagined to be true.

She blinked away, severing the contact like a swift swipe from a sword before she looked across the room, her eyes darting _nervously perhaps?_ – although he could not read her expression so easily as he could others.

Oliver followed where her eyes landed and found himself staring into the black abys of Laurel’s glare, to see such inflamed annoyance sparked between her brows almost made him smile.

“Don’t let her concern you Felicity” Oliver remarked as he bought his eyes back to the whimsical blue of Felicity’s  
“All the same” she spoked quietly as she dipped her head and took another small step away “I do not fancy being the talk of the evening”

Oliver, without thinking about the many eyes that stood watching his every move, reached out and took Felicity by the wrist, stopping any further retreat from him she might make.

If it weren’t for the musical playing jovially in the background the gasp that fell from Laurel’s lips would have echoed from the beams of the Grand Hall, for such a display was not befitting the company kept.

“You came alone?” Oliver asked, his voice rapt with need  
“Yes My Lord, does this trouble you?”  
“No, but I do not know who to ask”  
“Ask what?”  
“That I may speak with you”  
“I am quite capable of answering such a question and is that not what we have been doing?”  
“Alone. I wish to speak with you _alone_. Perhaps show you the gardens you did not see”

Felicity smiled, her wrist still caught in Oliver’s hand. If she had willed it, she could have removed it the second he had laid it on her, but she left it, aware of the audience his show was drawing.  
“The night is well along, I imagine it is still too dark to see anything of beauty out there”  
“Then we shall bide our time until the sun rises”

Felicity could see Laurel start her path towards them and while she knew they would come to odds at some future time, this was not the time or the place for it.

“I shall take my leave now, give me a few moments of respite before you choose whether to follow, that is all I ask” Felicity spoke with her head tipped slightly to her shoulder and her lashes fanned across her cheek when she blinked stiltedly

She had set her lure and it was time to see if it was enough.

“Will you be waiting when I follow?” Oliver asked a sense of need caught in the rasp that came from the deep of his throat  
“I cannot promise that I will be” she replied as she eased her arm from his grip, turned and headed back out the way she had come.

She saw Cooper in the distance offer her a knowing look to which she replied with a simple – barely seen, but all telling, smile _she had made her presence known,_ and in doing so made her first move in this game of chess – a _Gambit_ where the player sacrifices a pawn to allow the Queen come into play. The pawn was to be her lips and her words, offered to Oliver should he fall to their power.

***~*~*~***

“Who is she?” Laurel asked as she sidled beside Oliver, his eyes watching as Felicity left through the imposingly large doors  
“The colour green does not suit you Laurel” Oliver quipped, his eyes following Felicity as she left through the main doors  
“Do you know her?” Lauren hissed, the forced smile on her face only for anyone whose gaze might find its way over to them  
“Enjoy your party” Oliver smiled before abruptly stepping away

Oliver walked through the milling crowds where some paid him the attention due and others simply carried along in their merriment. Oliver, for his part, was counting seconds in his head, deciding how many were needed for the time lapse to equate to “a few moments” – so engrossed in his own thoughts was he that he did not notice the stealth figure following his footsteps like a shadow, a thin blade pressed into his palm, waiting for a moment to strike.

Cooper could reach out and touch him should he wish it, the blade was warmed to his palm and he knew he could plunge it into the throbbing vein that was beating heavy down Oliver’s neck. The famed Lord would be dead before his body hit the ground. Cooper had already scoured the egress of the castle and while he was sure he could make it to the grounds, he knew there was little hope he could outrun the army that would follow, but he put little weight on that outcome, Oliver would be dead and that was all that mattered.

“ _Promise me as a brother”_  
The words echoed through his mind as if carried on the wind  
_She would forgive him – he had done all this for her_  
His words were lies and he knew it. Felicity would never forgive him.

His hesitation cost him seconds he did not have to spare and as quickly as the opportunity had presented itself, it vanished as Oliver shifted his course and headed towards a small door which was flanked by several guards. He pressed the blade back up his sleeve and withdrew – he would not spill Oliver’s blood tonight.

Oliver reached the door as the guards stood rigid at his approach. He paid them little attention as he slipped past them without a word and searched the barely lit area in front of him.

His careful eye landed on the intricately carved fountain his mother had spent a fortune in both money and time to have built pride of place in the inner bailey. There she stood, bathed in the white glow of the moon and flecks of warm orange from the flames set atop the poles that lined the bailey paths. Her arms were swept around her waist and her back to him.

He stepped forward towards her before he paused and steered his path back towards the men standing watch nearby.

“You, I will speak with you” Oliver voiced, his stiffened finger waving to the smallest of the group  
“Yes my Lord” the narrow set boy, barely the age of sixteen replied, his head dipped low

Oliver gestured him away from the others and he dutifully obeyed without pause.  
“You will stay with me until I tell you otherwise, but should anyone ask it of you, you will swear to this woman’s chasteness, do you understand?”  
“Yes, Sir”  
Oliver’s eyes narrowed, looking for any dishonour to be found. He saw nerves, perhaps some anxiety, but no dishonour.  
“Good, I will see that you are rewarded for your troubles. Stay at some distance, the words we speak are not for you to hear”

The young boy nodded, his arms braced like beams against the side of his body. Oliver chuffed out a smile, the boy looked like a child in his father’s uniform. He would have a word with Slade soon about letting the soldiers get a few more years on them before they were brought in.

Oliver ushered him to collect a lamp and once more the young waif did so without question before returning to Oliver and staying a few steps behind him as Oliver walked a straight path, trampling grass underfoot, to Felicity.

“You stayed?” Oliver breathed down Felicity’s neck  
“I fear that I should not have” Felicity replied, letting her fingers float just about the water  
“Are you afraid of me?”  
Felicity looked up, the high moon illuminating the smile caught in her eyes  
“No, I fear only myself and how easily you make me forget it”

“Walk with me” requested Oliver, a wisp of a rasp threaded through his voice as though her denial would pain him  
Felicity hesitated, playing the part she should.  
“This man will walk at a distance and swear an oath to your virtue should word be said otherwise”  
Her eyes walked over to the young man out who stood just out of ear shot.

“You can trust me Felicity, I mean you no harm” Oliver spoke a faint growl stitched between his words as he lay his palm open to her  
“You offer me an oath, who am I to discount it?” she remarked as she slipped her hand into his.

She was surprised with its roughness, she had felt the hand of many a noble and they all maintained the silken touch of a person who had not seen true work in their lifetime.

From the vantage point they could see much, the moon was high, shrouded only in part by whips of deep midnight-blue clouds. The lake stood like a mirror reflecting the moon with complete clarity and stillness until a swan landed nearby and sent a ricochet of ripples across it. The sounds of revelry faded into the background as they strolled, his hand swallowing hers, down the small flight of cut-stone stairs into the sweeping gardens.

To say it was picturesque would have been an understatement and Felicity, even in the foggy light of the lantern held by the young guard who kept a suitable distance, could appreciate the innate beauty of the prized gardens.

Flowers of every colour, though their exact shades were muted in the dim light, ran alongside narrow paths made of shattered stone and pebbles as expertly trimmed hedges tucked in tightly against the wall. The Estate house stood proudly above it, grand windows looking down into sloped paradise.

“From up there my mother designed it to look like the closed wings of a butterfly” Oliver remarked, his finger directing Felicity’s eye line to a room that sat of the third floor of the house.

The expense of Verdant Castle and its grounds were not lost on Felicity. She was aware – although unsure if Oliver knew she was – that it was unusual for such places to have large and imposing windows given the cost and fragility of glass. This family’s wealth stretched well-beyond simple nobility.

“Your mother is a woman of keen eye no doubt” Felicity replied as she gently eased her hand from Oliver’s and kept it saddled to the side of her dress as her eyes tracked back towards the lonesome guard

“Does he bother you?” Oliver asked, his hand grasping at air with the loss of Felicity’s warm touch  
“No my Lord, I just wonder how these men look to you so willing to serve you”  
“Respect is a path that goes both ways, I offer them and their families a fair wage and a safe place to live”  
“And they in turn offer you’re their servitude, their lives?”  
“If it is asked of them” Oliver replied bluntly as he noted the way Felicity turned her head away and took a few small steps closer to the lapping water’s edge “war is distasteful to you?”

Felicity kept her eyes lowered and her lips slightly parted as she waited a few moments before catching his gaze back.  
“War is a necessity” she replied as she brushed a carefully orchestrated touch to the smooth dip of her neck “or so I am told” she added with a slightly tipped smile

“You are a woman of intrigue and yet I do not even know your last name?”  
Felicity swallowed back the angered words she wished to one day utter in his ear as she plunged a knife into his throat – _that she was Felicity Kuttler, the daughter to the man and woman he had slain._

“Smoak, my Lord” she replied with a pleasing smile, her mother’s maiden name was lost among the years and the use of it would go unnoticed  
“And what brings you to Starling, aside from the fates that find me stood next to you?”  
“A simple journey, nothing more”  
“Do you travel much further?” Oliver asked, intrigued as he followed her whimsical steps  
“I will cross the channel into Normandy when I please to” Felicity replied, floating one foot in front of the other as she walked  
“And you have come from?”  
“London” she replied, the story etched into her mind as though it were the truth. She was a skilled liar and should he ask her this same question at any other time she would remember it with ease

“That is some distance to travel” he remarked, faint lines of concern crossing over his brow “you travelled this alone?”  
“You seem bothered, have you not made the same trek plenty of times alone?”  
“Yes, but I am not-“ Oliver paused to consider his words as he stepped alongside Felicity, her toes just inches now from the water’s edge  
“What? A woman?” Felicity quipped as a whip of cool air waved strands of golden hair across her face “You think it improper for me to travel because of what I carry, or perhaps don’t carry, between my legs?”

She smiled as Oliver’s mouth gaped open, she had calculated that she needed to be more than the fair maiden prone to fainting spells and without a voice that could be heard above a faint whisper. To outlast any bed companion that came before her she would let just enough of herself in to be markedly different.

Oliver’s gape quickly softened, his eyes lifted and his lips twisted into an amused smirk.  
“I am more drawn to what you carry across your chest if you will forgive my candour”

Felicity mirrored his smile before her attention drew back towards the guard.  
“I will forgive your candour, but will he?”  
Oliver’s hand grazed gently down Felicity’s arm, a touch that was as simple as it was telling, before he walked back up towards the boy, whispered something into his ear and took the lantern from his hands.

Felicity watched with measured interest as the young man nodded and walked back the way they had previously come.  
“Do you think that wise?” Felicity questioned as her eyes wandered into the thick black night that surrounded them, save for the wistful glow of the lantern Oliver placed on a stone pedestal not far from where she stood

“He will extol only your virtues” Oliver chimed as he closed the distance between them  
“And what of you, what will you extol?” Felicity left the barely whispered question hanging in the still air that encased them as she watched him step closer until he stood barely a feather’s breadth away from her.

His presence was commanding, his shoulders broad and his chest proud. He spoke with every asset at his disposal – from the captivating depth of his eyes to the unflinching stance of his legs, Felicity could see that he was a man, a soldier, long before he wore the trimmings of a noble.

“Are you cold?” he questioned kindly, his hands already moving to remove his cloak  
She was not, her body tempered to withstand much more than the light, crisp breeze that tapped at her shoulders, but she sensed Oliver needed to feel chivalrous and so she thankfully accepted the gesture when he placed the cloak around her slender frame.

It carried more weight than she expected it to and it swam over her svelte frame.

It did not go unnoticed that he did not answer her last question, although she could not read upon his face a reason why.

Time slipped through their fingers as Felicity asked remedial questions about the architecture of the buildings, the size of the army that lay within its walls and the depth of the lake she stood cautiously at the edge of.

Oliver answered them, oblivious to the fact that each answer drove a nail into his coffin as Felicity built the knowledge she needed to devise her plan.

“And the lake, you must bathe in it during the long summer evenings?” she asked as she wandered around to the edge of the gardens, her eyes tracking across the lake to the second island where the Gloriette sat.

“I prefer the thick nights, not unlike tonight, where the day’s sun has warmed the lake enough that the steam rises off it. When the moon is high and the air is still I will often steal the moments to linger in the water”  
“You do not worry that you must wander through the grounds soaked like a drowned rat to your chambers?”  
“But I need not, just around the bend where you eyes cannot reach is a door for a passage that only I use”

Felicity smiled, she had so easily learned of the door that Cooper was unsure of.  
“And where does this lead?”

Oliver leaned in, his lips grazing her cheek and his warm breath tingling against her skin.  
“I hope to show you one day Felicity”  
Her name left his lips like a prayer spoken in an undertone.

“You must delay your trip to Normandy, linger here in Starling and when you wish to leave I will have men escort you wherever you want to go”  
“I do not require such consideration my Lord, I am but a lowly traveller”  
“It is for my benefit that I send them, in hopes I can learn of your next residence and find you there”

His hands smoothed up her arms, his touch as light as a flower’s petal traced over her.  
Felicity smiled sweetly at the contact despite her body wishing to recoil from it.

“You have captivated me in ways I did not think possible, like I have known you a lifetime and yet only just met you this night. Are you most certain we have not met before tonight?”  
“I do not think it possible that we have” Felicity breathed as Oliver moved closer, his head slowly dipping towards her and his lips parting like floating pavilions.

She stood her ground, denying the quiver in her lips that was at the fore. She knew this would take every ounce of steel-will she possessed, but this man, this statuesque figure stooped towards her, had only been the hand that wielded the sword and Felicity needed to know who it was that signed the execution papers – whatever it took.

Oliver’s descent stilled with his lips so close to Felicity’s that she could feel his warmed breath ghosting over her tepid lips. He would kiss her and she would kiss him back because this was her game of chess and she would have her checkmate.

The longing coursing through every part of Oliver’s body was intense and encompassing. He had desired women before, that feeling was not new to him. Many a beautiful maiden had taken his fleeting attention in years past but none for some time and none so completely as the one that stood before him with tempting eyes and the lips of a siren.

But he could not shake one thing as he stood, his lips poised just above hers and her hair danced atop the lightly fragrant air, there was something so deeply familiar about her – like a memory lost in time and only now reawakened. _He knew her._

His lips craved her touch and his tongue begged to taste her as he laid a gentle finger under her chin and raised her head just a fraction. _So close_

“Oliver” the sound of his name echoed through his brain as though he was imagining it  
“Son” Moira petitioned as she stood regally on the staircase, her eyes locked on the two caught in the lantern’s glow

Felicity dropped her chin to her chest and took a full step backwards, letting the edge of the shadows embrace her  
“Did you want for something?” Oliver asked, his tone exasperated and his hand fisting to the side of his leg

“Your guests are wondering where you are”  
“They are not my guests. Ensure there is food and alcohol and they will be fine”  
Oliver took a step towards Felicity and closed the gap she had created.

“Oliver, your place is inside, not out here” Moira spoke with warning

“Please” Felicity whispered as she watched the tension grow on Oliver’s face “do not make me into a villain this way”

Felicity knew Lady Moira to be a fastidious woman of great influence and although her allegiances were somewhat guarded, it could only be assumed that they lay with her family – her husband – and ultimately with the Templar Order. She would not be a woman easily swayed and Felicity was certain she had already made an enemy out of Laurel tonight, she could ill afford another so soon.

“I will take my leave now, the night and the long days travelling have taken their toll on me, please allow me to leave my Lord” Felicity petition, her voice eerily soft

“Where are you staying? Please tell me” Oliver pleaded, his hand cupping her elbow as she went to move away  
“I do not think it is wise that you know of it” Felicity replied, taking a hastened step towards the stairs  
“Please, I must know it so that I don’t knock on every door in this town trying to find you, for the sake of those that value sleep, please tell me Felicity” he asked, his tone low and his eyes desperate as his hand once more came around her wrist

Felicity looked up towards Moira, still stood with hawk-like foreboding.  
“The inn on the outskirts of town, the one with a lone archer painted in green on the sign, do you know it”  
Oliver nodded as his hand slowly released Felicity’s wrist  
“I will see you again” he said, his words not a question nor a demand  
Felicity said nothing more as she walked from the garden, pausing only briefly to offer Moira a polite dipped curtsey before she disappeared into the night, a cautious smile growing across her lips.

***~*~*~***

“And who was that?” Moira asked as she threaded her arm through Oliver’s bent elbow  
“A woman of great charm” Oliver replied coyly, aware of his mother’s nature as he began the walk back towards the Grand Hall, his eyes stealing a passing moment to look over his shoulder, but Felicity was well and truly gone

“You have a woman of great charm already son” Moira remarked as they took the stone stairs towards the oak doors one at a time  
“If you are speaking of Laurel, there is little charm to be had in her” Oliver quipped, his tone a biting one  
“That is no way to speak of your wife”  
The sounds of music and chatter floated between them as they drew closer to the festivities  
“We are not married, nor will we ever be” Oliver replied as he nodded a brief gesture to his men stationed on either side of the towering doors.

“In the eyes of God you are son. His and mine are the only eyes that truly matter” Moira smiled as she tapped his hand and moved towards a group of nobility engrossed in idly chatter.

Oliver, still absorbed in every memory of Felicity that he carefully stored, left the words to dead air. That would wait another day or more, tonight he wished only to think of Felicity and how he might see her once more.


	4. Wyrd  {Fate}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wyrd “that which happens”.  
> Fate, chance, fortune, destiny.

 

Felicity stepped into the small room and pushed the heavy door closed with lulled eyes. She breathed deeply, letting the unforgettable musk fill her sense of smell and dance on the tip of her tongue.

It always amused her that he would attempt to conceal himself from her, unaware that his scent of harvested silver birch and wild foxglove flowers was one that was forever etched in her memory.

“Come out from the shadows brother” she whispered as she walked without noise to the porcelain washbowl sat atop the oak table beside the bed.

She didn’t turn when she felt his un-gloved hands curve around her shoulders, nor did she flinch when she felt the calloused fingers of his left hand skim around her tipped neck.

The fingers from both hands met at the tip of her dress, each one pinching a side of the gold-threaded cord that kept her dress closed at her chest. He pulled the cord bitingly slow before the neckline opened up, exposing Felicity’s skin to the brisk air that filtered from the rickety wooden shutters a few feet away.

“You always find me” Cooper whispered, his lips lingering close to her ear  
“Because you are never far away, _brother_ ” she replied, taking his hands into her own and pulling them away from her body as she turned to face him

“He is under your spell then?”  
Felicity placed Cooper’s hands to his side before she shrugged Oliver’s cloak from her shoulders and laid it gently onto the small bed  
“I suppose we will soon find out”  
“How far will you take this Felicity, how much of yourself will your surrender to Oliver Queen for him to enjoy?”  
His tone was bitter and she recognised it well. Though she loved him as best she could, she had long since known Cooper wanted for more.

“I will go as far as I need, to get what I came here for?”  
“You would give your body to a man whose hands are covered in blood?”  
“Are not ours as equally so? We kill for different reasons perhaps, but mine are no cleaner than his, nor are yours”

She dipped the simple band of cloth into the tepid water in the washbowl and wrung it out slowly, her eyes watching the water drip from it before she pressed the damp cloth to her face and breathed in the notes of lavender infused there.

“A body is simply a vessel, it means nothing” she asserted as she ran the cloth slowly under her eyes  
“And what of a heart?” Cooper bickered  
“You know I don’t not have one to offer” came her terse response, embittered with the years she spent burying such a notion  
“Did you not even for a moment, all those years ago?”

Felicity let a soft sigh slip from between her parted lips as she folded the cloth over the side of the bowl and ran the ivory brush her mother had once given her through her golden mane.

“Do not ask things of me brother that you know I cannot give you” she replied, the emotion of her words trapped within the breathy tone in which she spoke  
Cooper took the brush from Felicity’s hand and laid it back onto the table. His chilled hand pressed into the back of her neck and pushed her soft hair to one side.

“Have you always been just a vessel?”  
She knew his question well and it focused her mind to a time that was emblazoned on her past like a tattoo mars skin.

 ***~*~*~***  
**[August 1146, Outskirts of Windsor]**

“You are packing your bags once more, I will never understand why you do not just leave them packed” Cooper jested as he pulled the flank clinch tighter around Felicity's horse  
“I am the best fighter among them and yet they push me aside once more” Felicity hissed, her young eyes filled with a bitter rage

She was barely 16 but her blue eyes had seen more than most ever would and the depth behind them evidenced that.  
“What reason did they give you this time?” Cooper queried, barely 17 himself  
Felicity scoffed loudly her tears burning like hot coals behind her eyes.

She had listened in to the words spoken behind closed doors, her footsteps lighter than even they could recognise, her body much smaller and more adept to stay crouched for some time. A room full of trained assassins and they had not even noticed her hidden in the eaves.

 _“She is a girl, we have never brought one so young and tempestuous into our ranks, despite her lineage, she is weak”_  
_“She fights with much more speed than the boys here, where they use their weight she uses any other means at her disposal, she is far more creative in her attacks, I do not think that is to be taken lightly”_  
_“She is still weak, it is her nature, compassion, empathy, virtuous traits for a mother, a wife, but not an assassin”_

The room had gone quiet, the only one who had stood up for her now hushed.  
_“We have taught her enough, let one of the men take her as a wife, let her live the same life as her mother”_

The words had stung her and her ears had gone deaf to much of what was spoken about afterwards as though she was drowning in storm-churned waves. They had taken her in and trained her only to appease her father and despite her relentless endeavours to stand on her own merits, they would never see her as anything more than a woman to be a wife and to carry children.

A girl was a child until she lay with a man and then she was his. It didn't matter what she did – that was all they would ever see.

“And how does running away help?” Cooper asked as he tested the strap on the saddle bags with a jolted tug

“I’m not running away, they spoke of a general in Stephen’s army that rides for the West, a day’s journey from here. They plan to be waiting for him at the end of the Thames”  
“And?”  
“And I will show them just what I am capable of, I will take him out myself before he reaches it”  
“There is little coverage on that path Felicity, that is why they will have decided to wait, you won’t get close” Cooper cautioned with heavy set eyes

“I can walk with invisible steps and I can hide in a room with six masters, I can do this” Felicity retorted as she ran a heavy hand down her horses leg, coaxing him into the journey that lay ahead

“You will be thrown out of here, trained no more if you take this in your own hands”  
Felicity's lips folded inward, tightly as she clenched her youthful jaw  
“They will never embrace me as their equal and I will never be just a coward under their feet, so if I am not to take the oath, then let it be because they are fearful of me, not because they think me weak” she spat as she tore knotted the skirt of the midnight black dress at her thigh, revealing linen pants she had altered to fit tightly around her legs  
“So is that where my pants went?” Cooper smiled, smugly  
“They expect me to fight in a dress I can barely ride properly in” she huffed, tucking a loose section of hair fallen from her braid, behind her ear

“You shouldn’t go alone” Cooper remarked as he led another horse from its stall  
“I will not ask you to come”  
“You don’t ask, and yet I offer it all the same”  
He saddled the second horse with little fanfare as Felicity mounted hers.  
“You may ruin your chances here Cooper” she spoke quietly as she lowered her hood over her hair  
“I’m the bastard son of a man who merely takes pity on me, I have no real place here” he remarked with grimace

They rode through the night and found the General's entourage travelling along the banks of the Thames at dusk. They counted 10 on horseback and three covered carts.  
“They will make camp soon, we can attack then” Cooper whispered as they paced, now on foot, behind a line of Birchwood trees  
“Why the carts?” she spoke as her eyes watched the wooden wheels sink heavily into the sodden ground  
“Weapons?”  
“Each man carries his own” she retorted, pointing out the swords each wore prominently  
“Three carts for ten riders? Each cart pulled by two horses and the wheels are bearing heavy loads, there is something more to this”

The two, hidden amongst the overgrowth of the bushes around them watched the convoy slowed into a clearing.

Scouts dismounted and drew swords. Felicity and Cooper dug their bodies deeper into the rich surroundings of foliage. The scouts rummaged through the undergrowth mere feet from the hidden figures shrouded in the failing light before they withdrew and returned to the others, announcing that the area was clear.

Three taps on the side of one of the carts echoed through the stilled dusk air before the heavy white cloth covering pulled back and revealed four hidden soldiers all emblazed with emblems bearing the mark of the Templar Order. The second and the third carts revealed the same.  
“It's an ambush” Felicity concluded with a sharp intake of air. The small band of 10 had more than doubled “we have to warn the Master”

And they did; or at least they tried.  
“Master, they number over twenty, and they are not simple foot soldiers, you and the three with you will be slaughtered” Felicity urged, her chest heavy with the quickened breath from the race to the safe house she knew they would be lodging in.  
“We have surprise on our hands” the older man gruffed as he ran a heavy hand across the scars that marred his cheek  
“They hid their numbers; I think they know you’re here”  
“Impossible” he snapped as he slammed a tightly clenched fist onto a table beside him

A single candle-lamp jumped a fraction with the assault as did an empty carved bowl.  
“Master please, you must retreat” Felicity continued, her pitch raised with a pleading  
“Who are you to tell me?” he snarled as he turned his back and headed towards the cracked door  
“Did you not here what I said? They will lay waste to you” Felicity replied with a hastened hand clasping the Master’s arm  
The weight of his hand cracking against her cheek sent her stumbling back and caused a chain reaction of the chair she fell against tumbling to the floor and Cooper unsheathing a small blade and stepping between a dazed Felicity and an angered Master.

“You are not worth it” he growled vehemently as he sunk closer to the door “You are only fit for a whore house, your training to become anything more is foolish, you will never be more than just your father’s daughter until you become some bastard’s wife”  
His eyes locked with Cooper – the insult was meant for him.

Cooper raised his blade before Felicity placed a hand on his forearm, stopping him.  
“No, do not give him reason” she conceded with sharpened eyes

***~*~*~***

A hastened ride later, with the brisk night air stinging her burning cheek, Felicity found herself sparking to life the smouldering embers of a blacksmith’s forge inside a darkened workshop filled with felled and cut lumber along with an array of smithing tools.

“He doesn’t know what he’s saying, pay that old relic no mind” Cooper spoke as he unsaddled the horses and lay the two dusty blankets onto the unforgiving floor.

“No, he is right. I will never be seen as an equal amongst men regardless of how I prove myself to them. All they will ever see is that I am a woman, and a woman should be tethered to a man” Felicity said as she breathed a slow, drawn breath onto the churned embers, igniting the forge

Once the small flame rose up her arms floated around her waist as she walked, barely breaking the hay underfoot, in small circles, letting the heavy smell of lumbered silver birch permeate her skin.  
“This virginity to most is a blessing, but for me it will be my curse. If I hold it they will say I am bitter, but if I give it away then a man will always hold it over me”

She turned to face him, her eyes glassed over with a thin film of tears, something he had not seen in all the years he had known her.

Her lips fell open and she sucked in a short, shallow breath as she stepped towards him, her size paled in comparison to his, despite their closeness in age. She wore a look of trepidation in her eyes only for a moment before she pressed her palms into the breadth of his chest, rose up against him and firmed her lips onto his.

He drunk her in, the way her lips formed, quaking, around his and the sweet taste of them melted into his own. It was as though the dreams he kept secret had sprung to life.

Felicity pulled back, the sensation pulling across her chest one of resignation. But she saw her way out.

“Take it from me” she asked, her voice coursing with a thread of desperation as she saw this as her only option  
“Felicity” Cooper breathed, his lips still enchanted by the taste of her  
“Take it from me, I beg of you. I know that you will not claim me or seek to hold power over me, please release me from this. Lie with me this night”

She leaned against him once more, her trembling lips the only faltering in her strong composure as she kissed the corner of his lightly parted lips. His hands, which had until that moment stayed planted at his side, ventured across her face, lightly bushing against the flushed warmth of her cheeks.

He wanted to ask her if she was sure or seek more words from her that she wanted this, but he was afraid of the answer he might hear if he did.

Felicity let his hands sweep across her and bury themselves in her locks as he pressed his lips against her, stopping her breath. She buried her reservations as she let herself over to it, her words a constant reminder of what she was purging _“no man will hold it over me, as though I am bound to them”._

His breath was warm against her neck as he lavished attention there, his lips swaying across her collarbone, his teeth lightly marking her. His hands fondled her as they stumbled blindly backwards.

The weather was mild but the cold stung Felicity’s shoulders as Cooper pulled the dress down her body, exposing her breasts. Her body coiled inward and the sudden exposure, her vulnerabilities laid instantly bare as he stepped back and let his lips drop away from hers. The orange glow from the flames licking at the sides of the forge now a few feet away caught the expression in his eyes and Felicity finally understood the captivating power she could hold.

With her nipples pert and tightly budded and her lips freshly washed with a slick from her tongue she stepped towards him, her eyes void of emotion but latched like hooks onto his as she gently eased the coat from his body and placed it atop the blanket he had early lay on the ground.

Her fingers eased through the closure of his pants, threading the buttons there like cotton through a needle. She didn’t look away from his eyes as she pushed his pants down his legs.

Without words she sat herself down on the bed made of blankets and coats and slipped her arms from the sleeves of her bodice. She swallowed heavily, pushing down her innocence that was screaming for something more than the affections of a boy she had nothing more than brotherly affection for on the dusty floor of a worker’s shed.

But, she would not let her heart speak on this as she slowly began to deaden its voice and slip her pants down her legs. This was to be nothing more than a step to be taken – a sacrifice to be made.

She closed her eyes as his body swallowed hers, his weight firmed against her chest. She felt numb, as though she watched from the doorway meters away, her soul removed from her body. She did not fear him and her trust in him in that moment was not mislaid as he entered her carefully.

She gasped as the painful feeling spread across her body like a fast flame scolding her skin. She swallowed back words and tears, as her mind sunk further away from her body and she knew that this was merely another emotion she would learn to deaden.

 ***~*~*~***  
**[Present Day]**

Years had taught Felicity that the lure of a dewy smile and the lingered glances of softly hooded eyes could get her information the tip of a blade could not and it could make even the most suspicious of men drop their guard.

“You speak out of turn” Felicity replied, her tone issuing a subtle warning that Cooper had long ago become accustomed to.

She had stayed with him that night because she wanted something taken from her, his reasons had been far different and years later he held them still.

“Forgive me, the strong mead has fogged my brain” he lied as he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and offered her a take-pity smile  
“You are my dearest friend, and I yours, I will always forgive you” Felicity quipped with a gentle nod of her head “but you should go”

As the last words left her mouth a light tap on the door stole their attention.  
“Who is it?” Felicity asked, her voice carrying softly through the room  
“It’s me” came the breathy reply, pressed against the heavy oak door “Oliver”

Felicity peeked through a small hole in the window’s wooden shutters and frowned. Oliver had not come alone and her room overlooked where at least two guards stood with their backs against a nearby wall.

“You can’t leave now” she huffed in a barely audible whisper as she pointed Cooper towards the door “stand behind it and stay as quiet as I know you can”  
He nodded without words, aware that his different pitch and tone may be something Oliver could hear through the walls.

Felicity feathered a hand through her hair, letting it tumble loose as she shimmied out of the heavy red court dress, leaving her body clothed in a simple fine white chemise that skimmed against the tops of her ankles

“My lord, the hour is late” Felicity spoke, her voice as soft as rolling ripples as she opened the door no wider than her shoulders  
“I am sorry, but I could not wait till tomorrow”  
“To do what?” she breathed, letting each word fall like dominoes from her naked lips  
“This” his lips peaked up at the seams with the small croaked response before he leaned in, smoothed a finger under her chin, tilted her head and pressed his lips, like warm milk, to hers

The kiss was like none his lips had ever known, she tasted like the first drop of sweetened honey and her lips felt like hand woven silk. His lips encased her swollen lower lip, hugging it with fervent need. His fingers laced into her hair as he lapped up each small breath that fell from her lips. She was like air to his lungs, or water to a parched mouth. He needed her.

Oliver’s eyes flittered open as he felt his lips pull back slowly from hers. The fullness of her swollen lip enticed him back but as he watched her retreat an inch back into her room, he stilled his advance.

“I’m sorry, I should not have don’t that without asking”  
“My lord, it is not that” she replied, her tone mild, whispered “but it seems your presence has drawn more attention”  
Her eyes beckoned him towards open doors where judging eyes stood. His eyes threw out warnings and the doors swiftly closed in response.

“I am sorry Felicity, you make me forget my mind”  
“I do not mean to” she sighed, her chest rising and falling through the thin fabric, gathering Oliver’s attention like the dance of a serpent.

“Never apologise for your beauty, it is truly unmatched” he crooned as he placed his thumb gently atop her plump lip, still dewy with the remnants of his kiss  
He grazed it slowly with his thumb, tugging the soft pinkish skin towards the corner of her mouth before pulling his thumb away and watching her lip as it sprung back

“Do not ask me to let you in my Lord” she let a light quiver of her lips follow her words, dragging Oliver closer to the web she would weave around him “I know if you ask it, I could not deny you, so I implore you not to ask me”

Oliver stepped back, his imposing stature concaving just a fraction to appear less broad across the doorway.  
“I would never force myself on you, never ask something from you that you did not offer freely, you must believe this”  
His tone was rasped, stretched and pained as her eyes coiled him in.

“As an apology for my wayward lips I ask that you join me at my home tomorrow, daylight will provide a better view over the grounds”  
Felicity watched him closely, once more refuting the unspoken law that a woman’s eyes should remain mostly downward.

“I accept. Your home is quite magnificent and I should hope to have seen more of it. It appears you have found my weakness my Lord”  
“Then we are even” Oliver gushed as his hand delicately collected hers  
He held it carefully as though it were breakable and his eyes wandered across it, studying it intricately.

“And that is?” Felicity asked, her voice barely heard beyond a feathered whisper  
“Is it not obvious?” Oliver asked, the unfettered expression of lust burning through his eyes.

He could not explain it if he tried.  
He was drawn to her like a moth to a flame; and – perhaps prophetically – Oliver believed that if, like the moth, he would meet his death by her flame, then so be it, he would embrace death willingly if she were to be the cause.

“Tomorrow then?”  
He stooped slightly to kiss the tail end of his words into her smooth skin.  
“As you ask” she agreed, letting her hand stay under the warmth of his kiss  
His eyes dared not stray from hers as he backed away, using every thread of willpower he possessed in his charge to do so.

Felicity closed the door, her eyes turning dark the instant that they met with the grooves of the back of her bedroom door.  
“You have a gift” Cooper spoke stoically, a hint of gravel in his voice  
“So I’ve been told” Felicity replied dryly

“You will bring a Templar Lord to his knees?” he asked a question that he already knew the answer to  
“I will find the truth and then” she paused to blink away from the door and meet Cooper’s gripping stare “I will kill him and everyone else involved”

The riling of horses just below the second storey window pinched Felicity’s attention as her eyes tracked towards the closed shutters.  
“I will stay” Cooper said, pre-empting the sentence he knew Felicity would speak  
“Leave brother, there is no more for you here tonight” she replied curtly, the hidden message in her words a clear as the full moon that bathed the town in a white glow.

Cooper didn’t speak another word as he stalked over to the window and peered through the cracks. The street was empty and the shutters of the windows that overlooked Felicity’s room were closed up tight. He lifted the hood of his cowl up and sunk his head into it, his face disappearing into the shadows of it before he peeled back the shutters, ducking to the side of the milky glow that rolled in.

“Cooper” Felicity whispered, her voice melodically carried across the distance between them  
He looked back, his hands poised on either side of the window opening.  
“You are my brother”

Her words were simple, but the meaning of them was anything but. She was not oblivious to how his affections for her had grown over the years and she could not imagine a life in which she did not count him as a friend – her only if she was honest. He knew her secrets and could always see her truth. They were kin under the same shadowy cloak, intrinsically linked as though there were blood relatives – she would never love him as less than; nor would she ever see him as more than.

She did not possess a heart capable of love.  
Or so she thought.

***~*~*~***

The way Oliver’s eyes had lingered on her had reminded her of her mother’s words to her as a child, she remembered them now, vividly and Felicity let the memories encase her dreams, swarming through her brain as she lay in a trained semi-conscious slumber. The images danced like watercolours, set like a stage play before her.

She was not quite eight, though most who knew of her thought her older – just one of the many lies that she had lived her life draped in.

To the outside world she was Megan, a small girl of thirteen, working as a housemaid in the quiet house set amongst rolling hills and skyward trees.

But within the walls of the home where she lived, in the tiny moments where no other ears could hear them, her mother would hold her like a child, whisper sweet words of endearment and brush her hair before night time overtook them. The mornings though we’re always Felicity’s favourite. A stolen moment with the three of them at breakfast, unremarkable in itself, but to a young Felicity living two lives, it was perfect in its simplicity.

This morning had started much like all the others that preceded it except for the revolting smell permeating through the parlour as Felicity sat crouched in front of the dusty fireplace, her hands black with soot.

“Can I not wear a scarf to cover it mam?” Felicity asked, her face screwing up as she looked at the hanging copper cauldron where the stench originated from  
“These people that will meet with your father are unlike any others, we must hide you much more than any other time” Donna remarked as she stole a look at the lizard bodies boiling in the rich oil, turning the oil a deathly dark shade of black

“How long will that colour my hair dark mam?” Felicity said with wild curiosity  
“With the old soot, a few weeks child”  
“And how long will these men stay”  
“A few days and you must keep this secret, do you understand?” Donna reiterated the serious nature of her words with her narrowed eyes and a hand gripped around Felicity’s slender arm

Felicity took a breath, watching as her mother mixed the oil with the cooled ash.  
“Yes” she nodded, she knew how to live a life shrouded in secrets  
She cringed as her mother heaped the first ladle of black paste onto her blonde locks. It was still warm and, as it melted into her hair, she pinched her eyes closed at the pain of it.  
“I’m sorry Felicity, but it needs to be warm”  
Felicity nodded, biting back the tears. Soot or a head scarf had always been enough to hide her golden locks in the past, but something was different this time.

“Is father ashamed of me? He hides me as if he were” she spoke quietly, the first time she had ever let the words come from her mouth.  
Her life had been different to any other child that she had met, she knew who she was by right and by name, yet to the outside world she wore another name, another persona.

She had no friends and she never attended lessons befitting her status in life. Rather her mother taught her in secret and she was never to reveal she could both read and write with some proficiency even at eight.

“No, my love, but these men must not know who you are, this hair, those eyes, they will be your greatest bait, men will remember such features, so we must hide them”  
“I cannot change my eyes” Felicity had pouted  
“I know child, but it is not your place to be looking up. Keep your eyes downward, remember you are nothing more than a chamber maid in this house” Donna remarked somewhat sternly before offering her daughter a quick smile  
“Yes ma’am”

Felicity’s memory was fractured, but the stench of her hair that morning never left her. The men had come in their fancy shoes, boots decorated with fine brocade – much fancier than any shoes she had seen before.

There had been more to that memory, but Felicity buried it back down, unwilling to allow herself the time or emotion needed to think about her parents – especially her mother – until her job was done.

***~*~*~***

The next day proved mild in its mid-morning weather, the clouds puffed like tufts of smoke in the blue sky that was tinged with just the lightest grey fog. It was neither cold nor warm and the threat of rain was distant although the prospect still hung in a few muted grey clouds.

Sara placed a hand discretely over her pomegranate-stained lips, hiding the yawn that was threatening to escape as her sister filled the air with constant complaints of the food, or the music, or whatever else she felt was not up to standard last night.

A tried and tested smile and a simple nod were all that were needed to fool her somewhat tiresome sister that she was listening, even as her eyes tracked across the courtyard of the inner bailey or watched the swans set off from the nearby lake.

It wasn’t long before her wandering eyes stopped at a figure in the distance walking with neither haste nor trepidation towards the centre of the courtyard. She wore a simple dress of blue, with no trimmings of lace or gold thread adorning it, a dress that befitted a commoner and stuck out in the lavish grounds because of it. The bottom was dusted from the road despite the hem being set an inch or two above her ankles and the belt she wore was of simple hand-woven leather.

The sun caught her hair, tied back in a simple braid that started like a crown around her head, and illuminated her porcelain skin. Sara had only caught a glimpse of her last night and she decided to herself that the candles, despite their number, had not done Felicity’s flawless complexion justice.

“To think he would choose to speak with her in a crowd full of people” Laurel muttered, her attention still focused on her own grievances as she stood with her back towards the approaching figure

“She’s here” Sara quipped, her mouth stayed a little parted as her eyes remain anchored to Felicity  
Laurel spun around, her expensive bliaut made of creped fabric whooshing as she turned. Her eyes darkened and her lips dragged a scowl across them as she, without a word, marched towards Felicity.

“You presume to just enter these grounds?” she snapped  
Felicity tipped her head in a feigned gesture of respect.  
“I am here by invitation”  
“Address me by my title” Laurel said with a viper tongue  
“And what is that?” Felicity spoke bluntly, the words laced with a bite that Felicity was trying to hold back  
“You know very well that I am the lady of this house, you will address me as such”  
“Of course my lady, only where I am from those that stay in guest rooms do not assume titles my apologies for my mistake”  
Laurel’s eyes sneered as her lips twisted, the nuances of Felicity’s chosen words were not lost on her.

“He will tire of you soon” Laurel gibed with a cold stare  
Felicity met her words with a slight raise of her brows and a soft smile on her peached lips.  
“He will fuck you and return you to the gutter you crawled out of for the night. He will hold no affection for you” Laurel continued her jeering onslaught

“Well then, you must enlighten me, how long was it till he tired of you?” Felicity’s lips caught a smile at the end of her words, and before she could bite her tongue she continued “although judging by your scowl, I take it you have been without a good fucking for some time”

Laurel’s mouth gaped open while Sara folded her lips tightly into her mouth, unwilling to let even the slightest of smiles escape, no matter how they fought her.

Felicity noted Oliver in the distant and offered him a soft wave of recognition.  
“I’ll be sure to let you know how the fucking goes” she promised with a broad smile she cared not to keep in check before she walked away without another word

“Who does that common whore think she is?” Laurel snipped, the venom in her words leaching off her tongue  
“I don’t think she is common sister, look at the way that she walks, it’s as though air could pass underneath her foot, common she is most certainly not despite her choice in clothing to appear as such” Sara remarked, watching with fascination as Felicity walked towards Oliver, her feet like feathers caught on a breeze

“Find out who she is and where she came from. Someone must have seen her arrive. I will not be made a fool of” Laurel said, ending the conversation with a sharp glare before she turned on her heels and stomped towards the estate house.

***~*~*~***

The mid-morning sun had already dried up much of the dew caught in the lush green lawn that Oliver took a shortcut over to meet Felicity by the cherub statute next to the exquisite fountain, the details in it now more visible than they were last night.

“You came” Oliver spoke, a kindly smile wrapped across his lips.  
He was dressed in something far more practical than his garb from the night before. A paled cream tunic draped his large frame although it pulled tight across his broad shoulders and fitted in snug against his waist where a girdle – although missing a sword – clinched it inward. A second belt of hardened leather swooped loose around his waist and thighs and held an empty dagger sheath, the pouch of which was carved with the Templar emblem.

He wore no trimming of nobility, no cloak and his chausses were of simple brown linen. This attire coupled with his noteworthy cropped hair was a snub in the face at the wealth and status he came from. It was clear to Felicity that Oliver saw himself more of a knight than a noble.

“I gave you my word” Felicity replied, dropping her knees slightly to offer a stooped curtsey  
“Please, don’t do that” Oliver remarked as his fingers lightly feathered across her sleeve  
“Decorum requires it?” Felicity said, her body still stopped, but her eyes drawn upwards to meet his  
“I don’t” came Oliver’s response as his hand cupped her elbow and he gently raised her up

She smiled at just one corner of her mouth as a sign she understood his request before he guided her to the right, the opposite direction they had walked last night. The gravel of the path crunched underfoot as she let her hand rest on his forearm and positioned her body a half a foot behind his.

“You would shun your birth right?” Felicity asked, watching the tiny expressions that formed in the slight lines between Oliver’s brows and at the corners of his lips  
“We cannot change what we are born into” he replied slowly, his eyes wandering out towards the lake before sinking back into hers “but we can change what that means, and to me that means that you should never stoop to me”

“What would you like to see?” Oliver asked, his mind awash with thoughts of Felicity, his hands desperate to touch against the smooth contours of her face and his lips eager to taste hers once more.

The night had been filled with thoughts of her, the familiarity of her eyes unable to leave his thoughts. He had been unable to shake the feeling as he had sat alone in his chambers with an untouched breakfast in front of him. It had been Raisa who had offered him perhaps the only explanation when she had come to collect his tray.

She had worked for the family from Oliver’s infancy and she would offer him Nordic wisdom with motherly candour.  
_“Perhaps you knew her in another life”_ she had remarked, barely a scratch of a smile on her face and not a hint of irony in her words  
He had laughed, the idea a preposterous one.  
Raisa had responded by clipping his ear with a sharp twist of her fingers.  
_“Then maybe you are the past and she is the future”_ she reprimanded with a slow-paced shrug _“we don’t know how everything in the world works”_

There was no doubt in Oliver’s mind that he was drawn towards Felicity in ways that he struggled to understand let alone coherently express, but he was sure that there was more to be explained about this than merely _wyrd_ – the old Anglo-Saxon concept of personal fate.

“Will you show me the stables?” Felicity enquired, a gentile finger pointing towards the gatehouse building  
What she could learn from both the stables and the nearby barracks could be most useful.

Oliver smiled with a bowed head as he steered the two of them towards the building

“Your people are greater than any of the other boroughs I have travelled through, your lands much more vast. How is it that your family has held onto them so long?” Felicity asked as they strolled over the grounded-gravel pathway lined with knee-high trimmed hedges

“It has not been without casualty, the wars have taken their toll, but my father had treaties and allies long before this started, they have served us well” Oliver remarked, his answer honest but deflective

She was yet to meet a Templar who did not, with only a little coaxing, speak freely of their ties, the arrogance begetting any tight-lip they had sworn to keep. Granted, her coaxing was often the tip of her blade pressed in against the beating pulse of their neck, but she had made the decision that Oliver would not sing like a caged canary if she took that route. Her lust for his blood would be settled, but not her quest for the truth.

“I offer them protection” Oliver continued, slowing his step just enough to close the small gap that Felicity had initiated between them.  
To the passing eye it would have seemed irrelevant, but as far as Oliver knew Felicity was a commoner and he was most certainly not. It was as expected as the sun rising each morning – Felicity should be at _least_ a half pace behind Oliver.

He smiled through his eyes in a silent expression that he knew precisely what he was doing. Felicity returned the smile with one that spread across the apples of her lightly wind-blushed cheeks – after all, any maiden should be flattered by the attention he seemed to be lavishing on her.

“No doubt behind these walls you are protected, but do not most of your subjects live beyond these walls, what of them?” Felicity asked as she allowed her eyes to walk up the walls of the gatehouse in front of them, Cooper was right, they were too smooth, too new to gain any footing – to scale them unaided would be virtually impossible.

“They will be welcomed into the castle if the need arose. We have raised a formidable army with more men on their way” Oliver said as his eyes slowly studied Felicity’s face, from the way her cupid’s bow tipped out a little from the centre to the way her brows arched with a smooth slope “they are about two days ride from here”

“You raise an army to fight?” she casually questioned as they came to a stop outside the stable doors  
The fresh smell of hay sunk into Felicity’s nostrils and danced memories of her childhood briskly through her mind. A new memory sprung forward but she resisted it, unwilling to let anything dull her senses at the present

“I raise an army to protect” replied Oliver before he pulled open the split door to the stables “I find most ladies do not appreciate the smell” he added as he pulled a freshly pressed embroidered cloth from a pocket and held it out to Felicity  
She shook her head effervescently, the smell far from bothered her.

“You have enemies?” she asked as she stepped past him and into the stables  
“Don’t we all?” came his rasped response as he returned the cloth to his pocket and pulled the door tightly closed.

Stable hands milled around, their eyes kept downward and their hands kept busy as Felicity and Oliver walked the hay-littered path between the wooden stalls

“But many old or sick ones or those on the very outskirts may take too long to make the journey, an army would have them dead before they reached the castle. While your grounds are large and you mean well, where will these people go, amongst the water features and the orchards? You would fit a hundred at most, yet you have subjects numbering six times that” Felicity spoke, her words carrying more knowledge within them than she had intended, but it had become clear that the way to gain Oliver’s trust was not just to be a pretty face.

“And what would you do?” he asked genuinely – despite how hard she looked, she found no thread of malice in his words

“Build towers, fortified towers that people can escape to” Felicity conjured as she plucked a bruised apple from a wooden pail and held it up to the mouth of a distinguished black stallion.  
She let the apple sit in her flattened palm as the horse sniffed and snuffed around it and she continued to speak “The hill over to the far right, you should build something that resembles a mill tower, harmless to anyone that might see it from afar but have it manned and equipped to set out a warning, build them all in stone but lay timber around the outside so they appear much less robust than they are”

She spoke in a nonchalant matter as though her words were nothing but the musing of an idle mind, just in case Oliver was not as open to hearing her suggestions as he wished to project.

“And why must it not appear as it is?” Oliver asked as his hand stroked the side of the stallion’s neck  
“Because my Lord” Felicity smiled as the horse took the apple from her hand “to be underestimated is your greatest weapon”

“You speak as someone who knows warfare”  
Felicity brushed her hand down the belled skirt of her dress as she stepped away from the horse.  
“My father was a strategic man and I spent many years at his feet learning from him”  
“And what of him now?”  
Oliver took a step towards her and his eyes remained linked to hers.  
“He is dead” she remarked solemnly, although her distant emotion would lead one to believe he had died some time ago

“I’m sure that he lives on in you”  
Felicity offered only a small thankful smile, the irony of his words not lost on her.  
“And what of your father?” she asked as she turned away from him, breaking his gaze in her concerted effort to keep him ever so slightly on the back foot

“He is not much more than a shell. Most of his faculties have been taken from him”  
Felicity hid her surprise well. She had not been concerned that she had not seen Robert Queen at the event last night as rumours had long circulated that he was a recluse of sorts, but Felicity had not counted on that being because time and illness had ravished him.

She would need to see Robert Queen, the once feared Grand Master, to decide for herself if – even in his frailty – he had ordered the death of her parents, or whether Oliver, acting alone, had made the call. A truth she would find by looking into his eyes with a blade to his throat.

“Thank you for the tour” Felicity said as they headed back towards the door  
“You’re leaving?” Oliver asked as they stepped back out into the sunlight  
“I came only to say goodbye” she replied, her voice quietened, her eyes purposefully dropped

“I thought you might stay on” Oliver remarked as they walked an idle path  
“I’m afraid I can’t, my lodging has come to an end” she spoke softly, her lips left open at the end of her words, silently enticing Oliver to stand closer  
His eyes begged for more clarity of words and she didn’t resist  
“The woman who runs it, seemed quite bothered by your appearance at my door last night, she believes you to be wed by common law to the lady of your house, apparently God would not look kindly upon me” she continued with a subtle smile surfacing over her lips.

The rotund and busty woman had not been quite so reserved with her choice of words, but Felicity had expected – if not banked – on about as much. It merely added to her chess pieces in play; and it was time to play another.

“Laurel?” Oliver practically spat, the name laced with years of bitterness “I will put her straight” he growled, his eyes almost instantly darkening as his fist clenched

Felicity absently wrapped her delicate fingers around his clenched fist, easing the tension that pounded up his forearm.  
“My Lord you cannot be angry for them only seeing what you portray” she remarked kindly, her head slightly cocked to the side, her eyes wide with concern and her hand stroking tiny circles across his hand.

His eyes looked pained, his expression verging on confused  
“She lives under your roof does she not?”  
“Yes” Oliver huffed, the single word making only one short syllable  
“She carries the title of Lady Lance of Starling, does she not?”

Oliver’s expression softened, but his fist remained tense  
“Yes” he sighed, exacerbated

“Then you cannot fault them for the conclusions that they have come to” she smiled, stroking deeper circles – a risk that had been well worth it  
“And what of you? What conclusions have you come to?” questioned Oliver, his entire expression softening a fraction more as she lulled him with a gentle touch

She let the question sit in the space between them as his hand shifted to encase hers and his thumb smoothed up towards her wrist.  
“That yours are lips that have not touched someone in quite some time” she breathed, softly, her lips remaining parted as her eyes danced across his

He could not hold himself back even if he wanted to when he crashed his lips onto hers. He caught the surprised gasp that followed before his hand found tenement against her lower back, bracing her tightly against him. She didn’t shudder or pull back and her lips toyed with his, embracing his top lip with a grazing softness.

Her lips were more prepared this time as they parted to offer his tongue permission to cross the threshold of them. He dove it forward, slipping his tongue into the warm confines of her mouth and gently dancing it with her own.

Moments passed and Oliver drunk each second that his lips were caressing hers with wondered abandonment, acutely aware but completely without care, that he was passionately kissing Felicity in the open grounds in broad daylight and if the decisions was his alone to make he would have stayed indefinitely locked in her lips.

“I will make this right” he whispered as he pulled back from her, his lips ghosting the words over hers  
“I hope that you do my Lord, you deserve to be happy” she whispered, her eyes still closed, her lashes spilled like dark fans across her milky skin  
“So you must stay” his forehead tipped against hers, his conscious state uncaring that they had become somewhat of a spectacle

“I cannot, I do not have anywhere to stay” she replied simply, pulling back from him as she felt the distant eyes watching them  
“Here, you can stay here” he quipped, his tone almost pleading as a wryly smile drew over his face  
“I’m sure your mother is a kind woman, but I doubt her kindness will extend to me staying in her estate house” Felicity retorted with a soft chuckle  
“Not there, in the castle, with me”  
“My Lord?” Felicity replied, stepping a single foot backwards

“You will have your own chambers of course, should you wish it” the last words were spoken of as an afterthought and his chest rose in anticipation of her answer

“And what should you ask for in return my Lord?” she bowed her head, her eyes seductively travelling across the width of his chest.  
He had done enough chasing for now, she would let him gain a little.

“Nothing, but that you talk to me as you do now, without unnecessary formalities, I find it refreshing”  
“And is there nothing else?”  
“My word stands, I will not take what is not offered freely and without coercion”  
She let her fingers of her free hand walk a light touch across her clavicle, twisting it through the necklace she wore and watching his eyes track its movement like a hunter  
“I shall take some time to think on it and return before evening tonight”

***~*~*~***

Felicity dismounted her horse in the same thicket just above the rolling hill where Cooper and her had parted ways days ago and come back together away from prying eyes whenever necessity required it.

She found him, leant against a tree, his arms crossed over his chest and his hood still covering the top of his face.  
“You look tense brother” Felicity smiled as she too left her hood down across her face. She had taken a risk in making herself so public, even travelling eyes could stumble upon them here and it would soon be best that her and Cooper no longer met while the sun was awake.

“You have drawn too much attention, Laurel will not let you continue”  
“We shall see how long she thinks she has control” Felicity shrugged, removing Laurel from any equation was a must – a woman scorned was a persistent enemy she could not risk having

“Her sister Sara has been roving through the town asking about you”  
“And what of it?”  
“Do not think it will take long before you and I are linked. Two strangers show up in this sleepy place the same day. Whispers will make it back to your Lord. You should leave for some weeks, return another time when the connection won’t be made. I will stay on and watch him”

“No, I have Oliver where I need him, leaving may break the spell I have worked so hard to conjure” Felicity spoke, her feet swaying through the long grass as she considered options before them

“Then what?” Cooper questioned, his tone verging of gruff and gravelled  
“Oliver has an army heading down this way, two days ride from here, meet them along the road and join yourself to them” Felicity surmised as Cooper straightened his stance and pushed off from the trunk

“I will be gone days if I do, I won’t leave you alone here”  
She laughed off his concern, she’d had been alone in far worse places for far longer.

“Even still” he balked, reading the expression of jest caught on her lips  
“Go, it will grant you passage inside the castle without scrutiny, it’s perfect”  
“And what of you?”  
“I will be fine” she replied with a melodic cheer “You should leave now”

He wanted to argue, but he knew such would be futile and he would find himself blending into a mercenary army regardless of his opposition to it. So instead he mounted his horse swiftly and started off with a simple farewell nod. A nod that said he would see her in a few days’ time.

***~*~*~***

Felicity spent the rest of the morning stretched into later afternoon practicing her aim with the small but deadly throwing knives she had secreted away in a concealed pouch she wore high up her sleeve. No matter where her eye landed she hit the target perfectly each time, the envisioned face of Oliver Queen projected atop every target, even as the rich taste of him lingered on her lips.

She would not deny that the kiss had been something passionate and hungered and to herself she could admit that no man had ever taken her lips so eagerly and mesmerising as he had. Perhaps it stirred within her a flame that had always been damped, but as she cleaned the tree sap from her last knife on the trim of her dress she knew it didn’t really matter, he would die regardless.

The ride back to town found her toying with time before she would return to Verdant with an answer. It would be then that she would see how deep a hold she had on him... at least she thought so until her eyes fell on a note pinned to the rectory house one passed when first entering Starling.

_Citizens of Starling,_

_The Lance family wish to thank you for your attendance at the ball last night._

_They continue to stay at Lady Moira’s request and in her home._

_It is because of this, Miss Laurel wishes to humbly inform the people that she does not carry the title of Lady, as some may be mistaken._

It was not signed, but bore the seal of the House – Oliver’ seal.

She was surprised at both the swiftness with which he acted and the boldness of such a notice. There was no mistaking what this was.

Clear, affirmed truth that Laurel held no favour with him.  
Felicity could only imagine how the walls of Verdant Castle were echoing with Laurel’s rage.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Bliaut = a tightly laced court dress, usually adorned with gold.  
> *Chemise = worn as a full length underdress, fine, thin fabric  
> 


	5. Scent

The sun was slipping down the horizon in a blaze of burnt orange and whips of pink when Felicity arrived at the castle, her horse laden down with all she had. She slipped from the saddle, her feet landing on the crushed gravel beneath her with an overwhelming sense of finality.

She looked up, beyond the walls of Verdant to see the castle stretching out into the coloured sky and she took a long and slow breath.

Felicity knew in her heart this task would ask something of her that she would not get back. Whatever she became behind these walls would blend into her like no other kill had ever done. There was a truth to be found, of that she was sure, but she knew that once she found it there might never be a chance to come back from it.

She had loved her father as any daughter would or should, eager to have them proud of you, but she had loved her mother with a fierceness that many in the creed would have denounced as weakness – Felicity knew that it was this love that brought her here, to the gates of Verdant Castle, set to play a game of chess that would leave every piece broken; of that she was sure.

“The Earl has asked me to accompany you” a deep voice spoke from behind  
Felicity did not startle at it as some may have; she had heard his footsteps approaching long before words announced his arrival.

Felicity let her eyes collapse closed a little longer; aware that her façade could not crack for even a moment, before she turned towards the voice and found a large man with skin as rich as poured chocolate and decadent brown eyes that seemed far too caring to be those of a man who wore a battle worn tunic.

“I hope you’ll forgive my candour, but we haven’t met” she asked sweetly as she slowly dipped her head  
“John Diggle Miss, I was asked to escort you inside, I’m afraid his Lordship has been waylaid”  
“He thinks I will get lost?” Felicity smiled as she watched John lead her horse over to a stable hand

The truth of the matter was that Oliver was tied up with something unavoidable and his stint with the notice had sent Laurel into a rage that, hours later, was still not tempered. He was also acutely aware that he was, perhaps selfishly, walking her into a place where not every man was to be trusted.

“Will I have your things delivered to your chambers?” John asked, his lips tipped into a smile at the corner, just a hint of jovially that Felicity found refreshing

  
Felicity let a smile linger across her lips, refraining from saying the words outright, but John caught the inference all the same.  
“Very well” he nodded before he turned his attention to the stable hand “have one of the maids come by and collect the bags, they will know where to place them”

“You live within the castle too?” Felicity asked as they made their way through the gate and down the path.  
It felt ominous to Felicity, not as though she walked towards her demise but as though she might never be able to walk away from it. Whatever she found here would become indelible.

“Yes, for many years”  
“You must have seen a great deal”  
“I have seen much”  
“I wonder if you have walked this same path with others such as myself?” she asked, the off handed comment meant to give her some more insight as to how long she might be able to hold Oliver’s attentions for

“You are the first Milady”  
Felicity hid her surprise well. It could have been a lie, and yet Oliver’s reputation was already known, she could not be the first woman taken into Verdant at his behest.

She was going to prod deeper as she did not like the idea that she was in unchartered waters without an idea of how long his whim might last; but before she could Oliver appeared through the castle doors just as they reached the first step.

His eyes met hers and the pull was almost touchable; as though to walk through it would cause a person to be garrotted.

“You came” Oliver spoke, his head nodding his thanks to John before he departed from them  
“You asked me to”  
“Did I give you what you needed?”

Felicity let the question hang between them as she took the few steps up towards him, with her hands lifting the heavy cloth of her skirt as she walked, blinking down only twice to check her footing; a ladylike habit she would adopt rather than a necessity.

She swallowed down the last remnants of her embedded distaste for the man standing before her as a softly-ethereal smile blossomed across her saintly lips. She lifted herself up, balancing without fault on the balls of her feet and pressed a lingered kiss to the apple of his cheek.

His musk was unlike any she had encountered before, it was decadent like the thick forest floor, heavy in pine and moss, but fresh with the notes of dew left where the sun could not extract it. She let the scent engulf her, let each different hint of it linger on her senses, studying it as though no other smell would be more important. She would know it, taste it, breathe it, so that should her sight ever be captured by thick shadows or circumstance, she would know him by smell alone.

The aroma would now scar her soul.  
And it did.

When she pulled back, her lips grazed his and she felt the warmth of his breath fan across her. His eyes were hungry pools of sapphire that drunk in every movement she made. His hands were adrift in the space between them, desperate to touch her but unsure whether to retreat.

“I will show you to your chambers” Oliver rasped, his hand finally choosing to sink deep into her waist  
Felicity could feel the desire seeping from him and while she knew she would eventually let him feast and satisfy whatever desires were forming behind those famished eyes he wore; she would make him wait a little longer to cloud his mind and distort his judgment.

“I should like a tour of the _entire_ castle if my Lord would allow for it” she replied with a tipped smile and a fainted glint in her eye

Oliver absently swiped his tongue across his bottom lip and tried to still the pulse that was thumping through his body. It had been some time since his hands hand delighted in the softness of a woman’s skin. The offers had been there, and in years past he greedily took them, but life had marred him from such hedonism and he sought now for something more.

His hands were stained and his legacy was dark but perhaps she could redeem him.

“As you wish it” he smiled as he danced his fingers up her spine, lightly across the back of her shoulder and then let them fall uninterrupted down the back of her arm before his fingers caressed the supple skin at the inside of her wrist.

“My Lord, pardon my intrusion” John said, his head bowed as he returned to them ten minutes after he had left  
Oliver let his finger stay pressed to Felicity’s wrist drinking in each slowed pulse she gave off. It surprised him that her heartbeat never wavered, despite the boundaries he knew he had crossed.

John leaned forward and despite Felicity trying to listen to his words, they were meant only for Oliver’s ear and she never heard them.

The smile from Oliver’s lips fell away and his finger pulled back from her wrist. His brow tugged inward and the lines around his eyes gave away that his mind was burdened.

“Felicity, you came” Thea spoke as she padded down the stairs quicker than a lady of her standing ought. Her lips were a flurry of smiles before she settled on a bright one that make the cores of her cheeks blush.  
“Will you stay with us some time? I do hope you like pheasant. I should like to show you the estate house once my brother sees to letting you loose” she spoke, peppering the words without taking much of a breath between them

“I’m afraid something requires my attention Felicity, my apologies” Oliver spoke regretfully as he stepped away.  
It was not hard for Felicity to notice how much his demeanour had changed.  
“Perhaps Thea could show you around” he continued, his words now directed toward Thea  
“It would be a delight” Thea replied without the need to consider it

“I will see you tonight at dinner”  
Felicity was unsure whether his words were meant as a question or a statement but she nodded slowly all the same. She had thought about asking him what news troubled him, but it was much too soon to be asking questions that she had no right to.

Oliver let the disappointment sink into his expression once more before he stepped away and walked with determined steps in the direction of the bridge between the Castle and the Gloriette.

When Felicity’s eyes trailed him she noticed in the distance a young man, dressed simply, without armour or a weapon but he held the stance of soldier.

Thea too had her eyes follow them, but Felicity noted the young girl’s breath hitched when Thea saw the same man slunk against the wall. Felicity watched Thea a moment longer, just enough to see her eyes widen and her lips breathe out a name, far too softly for Felicity to catch it, but she didn’t need a name to know that whoever it was that had made Oliver distressed and made Thea pleased was someone they both knew.

“This area is a bore, you sit, you eat. The parlour is back there” Thea said, her eyes snapping back to Felicity, her mood slightly more elevated “my brother inhabits the old castle across the bridge, I’m not supposed to wander there”

“I’ll take you upstairs, Oliver has given you my favourite room” Thea remarked as she threaded her arm through the crook of Felicity’s

They started towards the stairs moments after Felicity watched the three men disappear from view. She took no further time to study the foyer of the Grand Hall as she had already taken what knowledge she needed from it. The other spaces around the lower levels would need to be explored, every ingress and egress tested, but she was in no hurry to learn, she would soon enough know every secret this castle had to offer up.

“Thea, you should be at your lessons in the estate house” Moira spoke, her tone sharp but still kept pleasant as Felicity and Thea reached the balcony where Felicity had first laid eyes on Oliver

“I’m sure lessons can wait for today” Thea responded, her voice edged with a kindly plea  
“And then what of tomorrow’s lessons?”  
It was a question not meant to be answered, and it seemed to Felicity that Thea knew that also.

“Oliver asked me to show Felicity to her room”  
“I can see to that”  
There was not an argument to be made and before Thea retreated she offered Felicity an apologetic smile.

Moira watched silently as Thea slumped down each step, taking one slower than the last until the sound of Moira clearing her throat sent Thea scuttling down the stairs a little faster.

Felicity felt the cold stare of a woman not so forthcoming with her welcomes as Thea had been. Whether that was because she held some already conceived ideas of Felicity’s presence or whether she was rightly concerned with the speed at which Felicity had entangled herself in their world.

Felicity could not fault the distrust. It was well deserved.

***~*~*~***

Oliver paced the war room adjoining his chambers, the internal door (the only way in or out) was closed and the air was heavy.

“I waited like you asked My Lord but no one came to collect this ring” Roy, the young soldier, dressed in worker garb, remarked as he held out a gold signet ring, dull and in need of a polish, but worth a hefty price regardless

“You stayed hidden, where I told you to wait?” Oliver asked, plucking the ring from between Roy’s dirtied fingers  
“I did just as you instructed. I never ventured into to town nor stepped away from the encampment”

Oliver continued to pace, the ring now locked in his clenched fist.  
“If you would permit me to know who it was I should have been meeting, then-“  
Oliver cut him off with a heavy grunt that relayed the message that such information would not be handed over.

“You can go” John said as he pulled back the door with a heavy groan  
He could tell Oliver needed nothing more from the boy, and he was almost right.

“I don’t know if it serves you to know my Lord, but there was a fire over a week ago that set the sky alight with amber flames in a nearby town, perhaps the person who was to collect the ring was held up by it” Roy said as he took a few steps across the red oak floor

“Where was this fire?” Oliver asked and he braced his palms against the table littered with maps of the surrounding counties, the ring now placed atop them.  
“Havenrock, my Lord”

Oliver’s eyes closed, heavy and defeated and his lips gave way to a breathy sigh.

Roy dipped his head in respect before he started for the door, pausing only when Oliver spoke once more  
“Speak of your journey to no one” Oliver said without moving, his back towards both Roy and John  
“Yes my Lord”

***~*~*~***

“My son has told me very little about you” Moira remarked as she gestured Felicity to follow her across the landing “I wonder if that is because he doesn’t know all that much himself”

Felicity smiled politely, she could tell this was not to be a simple tour after all.  
“There is not much to know” Felicity replied calmly, adopting to walk a step or two behind Moira, a decision which did not go altered as her son had done previously.

Hierarchy was important to Moira Queen, this did not come as a surprise.  
“Where are you from?”  
“I have come from the south, travelling no set course” Felicity answered, her answer vague to make tracking it quite bothersome  
“Surely you came from somewhere, did you not?”

“London” Felicity lied; although her mother’s lineage had once branched out from London, there were no ties left there  
“Your family still reside there?”  
“Both my parents are dead”  
“Siblings?”  
“I have none”

“So you wonder across the country alone and without an escort to arrive in Starling the same night this castle is open to the town” Moira’s question was as sharp as a two-legged sword  
“It is quite fortuitous”  
“I would say it is remarkably so”  
“Perhaps” Felicity responded cautiously

“This is your chamber, my son requested that it be made up for you”  
Moira knocked and the door was opened to them by an older woman who held a shock of dark hair, laced with shades of grey near the scalp.

The room itself was extravagant. Much larger than required. The walls were brushed stone, braced with warm amber-wood. Heavy tapestries of embossed fabrics in muted golds and lush whites, fastened on rods decorated the castle’s internal wall. The floor was timber like that on the walls but, weathered by time and wear.

“This is Raisa, she runs the household, should you require anything please ask her. You can discuss with her your flow and when my son and you engage in your trysts which she will chart”  
Felicity bit back the surprise at the bluntness of Moira’s request.  
“Forgive me for my bluntness, but that won’t be necessary” Felicity replied, fighting back the urge to say more

“I am under no illusion why you are here at my son’s request” Moira poised, her vivid blue eyes locked onto Felicity, perhaps trying to get a read on her or perhaps hoping to make her flinch – she would get neither “and nor do I imagine are you”

Moira move fluidly once she had seen enough, touching slender fingers against the ornate wooden chair that sat in front of the warming fire.  
“I am not so naïve to think he brings you here for you idle talks or your company at the dinner table” her tone was biting, but collected, she was a woman, Felicity believed, that had more to tell than she might ever offer

“He can” she paused to consider her words, flippant in a smooth gesture of her hands “be engaged with you as he sees fit, but there will be no children born from this”

Felicity rolled words over her tongue as she watched Moira sulk around making a clear indication that despite this being Felicity’s room, there was no denying who held sway in it.

“I trust you will respect my wishes” Moira added with a twist of her lips, just the hint of a smile not offered to allay fears, but to let the recipient know there was no game to be won by them here.

“Of course, my Lady” Felicity relented as she dipped her head respectfully  
It was not the time to argue a moot point, Felicity would let Moira believe that she was nothing more than an opportunistic girl seeking to find a warm place in bed next to her son; and in doing so also let Moira believe that her warning had served its purpose.

No was not the time to show her just how wrong she was.

“A tailor will be here tomorrow to see to your wardrobe, in the meantime I have seen to it that your things have been unpacked and you should find a few extra pieces to your liking”  
Moira dropped her eyes from Felicity, her previous point made.

“I do not require such consideration” Felicity politely declined as she watched another, younger maid attend to a dresser full of clothes Felicity had never seen before

The chilled air between Felicity and Moira was palpable and could be seen in the slight drop in the calm and collected expression that had remained walled to Moira’s face.

“Your time here will afford you many luxuries some of which _when_ you leave you are able to take with you and no doubt my son will see you well looked after, but let it be known that you may act like a prostitute behind closed doors in my son’s chambers, but I will not have you looking like one outside of it”

Moira had closed the gap between them, her figure, while slender and not much taller than Felicity, was imposing in every facet. Her demeanour was to prove a point. To insist that it was Moira who, in the end, held the ear of her son and that no challenge to that would ever be allowed.

Felicity would prove her wrong, but that was not for today.

“As you wish it” Felicity said with a demure press of her lips to hide the grit of her teeth

“A bath has been draw for you” Moira chirped, her attitude changing almost immediately – she had received what she wanted “Do you wish for a chamber maid?”

“No, thank you” Felicity replied, her voice kept sweet and low – she would let Moira to continue to think she held some power of her; at least for the time.  
“Very well. We eat just after sunset, someone will come to collect you before then”

Moira ushered both Raisa and the other maid from the room, leaving Felicity alone with her echo in the room.

It was only then that Felicity allowed herself to study it more closely. The furniture was sparse, but was all she needed. A breakfast table and two chairs stair in front of a window that overlooked the lake and a sprig of lavender dried and placed in a vase atop it.

The dresser was large and made of the same deeply rich oak that mirrored the shade of the other pieces in the room. The maid had left the door ajar and Felicity could see the rich hues of brocaded dresses that she did not recognise peeking out from it.

A mirror in a gold-etched frame sat on the wall farthest from the door above a vanity where a porcelain bowl, with a softly painted pink rose pattern, sat. The bed with its carved wooden posts and curtains of fine white silk sat almost centre of the room, the head of it against the wall and at the foot of it a chaise settee that swam in a heavy mink blanket and stood barely four paces from the fire place that took the afternoon chill from the air.

There was a divider of silk and wood that ran across the second window, closing off one corner of the room. A she walked toward it, her fingers loosening the ties of her overdress the air became fragrant with wild lilies and jasmine.

She dropped her dress and let it pool at her feet before she stepped free of it, her body now clothed in the thin plain cotton of her underdress. She felt it long before she saw a flicker of a movement – she was not alone in the room.

“You should not hide in rooms you were not invited into” she spoke, her words flourished with levity, safe in the knowledge that the person could do her no harm even if they willed it

“You could see me?” came the soft, whispered female voice that Felicity had expected  
“No, not with my eyes” Felicity replied, her words carefully considered – although the person posed no immediate threat, the idea that she was even here was puzzling to Felicity

“Then how did you know I was here?” Sara quipped as she stepped out from behind the screen, her blonde hair draped loose around her shoulders and her lips painted a vibrant hue of rose.

“Intuition” Felicity answered as she twisted her hair in a knotted bun at her crown and secured it with a hairpin of bone that, should the need arise, could be used for much more

“They have run you a bath, do not let me stop you” Sara spoke sweetly as her fingers danced invisible notes in the air “I promise not to peek” she continued as he placed her hand across her eyes and turned her back on Felicity

She was here for a reason, and curiosity made Felicity want to know why.

Felicity let her underdress float free to the ground before she scooped it up and hung it over the screen before she sunk into the large wooden barrel tub that was tepid in temperature and clouded in colour.

Sara turned back around as Felicity bent her knees in the water and rested her head on the lip.  
“Raisa has a particular recipe of almond and jasmine that she puts in all the ladies’ baths, it keeps the skin soft and supple” Sara spoke before she breathed in deeply and dipped a finger into the water.

“She must like you” she smiled brightly, a face so vastly different from her older sister’s  
“Why is that?” Felicity asked, lulling her eyes ever so slightly to the sensation of the water lapping against her body, it had been sometime since she had lingered in warm water  
“She added crushed lilies”  
“And what benefit do they possess”  
“Much the same” Sara shrugged “but the scent of them on a woman’s skin” she breathed softly, letting the last few words drip from her lips like a dream “well, perhaps that’s best left for _him_ and not me to voice”

She smiled, wide and pulled from the eyes. No matter how hard Felicity looked, there didn’t seem to be any malice or jealousy in her words.

“Your sister sent you?”  
“Yes”  
“For what purpose”  
Sara chuckled to herself as she sunk into a nearby stool and folded her hands onto her lap.  
“To tell you to leave”  
“Is this you telling me as much?”  
“Nope” she laughed “I don’t always do my sister’s bidding”  
“And yet you’re here”  
“I wanted to see for myself”  
“What?”

Sara leaned in closer, drawing circles in the cloudy water with her index finger and smiling softly to herself. The question hung in the air unanswered until she pulled back her finger, dried it on her dress and promptly stood up.  
“The woman who is set to steal the heart of Oliver Queen”

Her answer surprised Felicity and such surprise may have, only for a moment, leaked onto her face.

“My sister thinks you common” she added, her eyes following Felicity as she walked towards the edge of the screen  
“And you?”  
“I am not my sister” she replied coyly

“Will you tell her you came here then?” Felicity asked as strands of her golden hair skimmed the water  
“Yes”  
“And what will you say to her?”

Sara’s eyes danced jovially, as though she was having nothing but unabashed pleasure at this exchange.  
“Nothing at all” she laughed before she disappeared from sight

Felicity listened for the tell-tale sounds of feet shuffling across the floor before she heard the heavy door to her room open and, seconds later, close.

Felicity let her mind swallow in the exchange that had happened, desperate to find some reason for it, but she could not come up with an answer that didn’t pose twelve new questions in its wake. Sara it seemed, was more adept at hiding her emotions, disguising them with warm candour, than her sister, who wore her distaste for Felicity like a placard. Perhaps it was a ruse to befriend Felicity in the event that she might reveal something Laurel could use, or perhaps the younger sister just wanted to step out from behind the shadows of the older.

Whichever was the truth, Felicity was unfazed by it. Their sibling issues meant nothing to her.

***~*~*~***

The four courses of food were extravagant to say the least and most of the meal was spent answering the questions Thea peppered Felicity with. It seemed the young girl had been sheltered within the walls and her curiosity of towns and places outside of it was insatiable. Felicity gave her what answers she could; London was vibrant; Normandy was bleak; the countryside was vast but much of it plagued by war. Thea had seemed ever more so curious about the Anarchy, likely because the fingers of it had never touched her life.

Felicity did not regale her of tales of the lives that had been blemished and broken by it and Oliver quickly shut down any further questions Thea asked of it. Moira barely spoke a word, likely because she had said all she needed and Felicity decided she was a woman that did not give up more words than were needed.

Laurel had not come, perhaps trying proving a point that no one bothered to understand. Sara had, and spent much of the time entrenched in Felicity’s words, much like Thea. Oliver for his part listened with his ears but his eyes betrayed the thoughts that enslaved him.

It was late by the time dinner was finished and Thea, Moira and Sara had made their retreat to the Estate house.

Oliver had offered a tour of the lower levels and while Felicity was more eager to see the secret tunnels of the Gloriette, she could not ask to see them until she had gained more of his trust. So it was for this reason that they were now admiring the wine cellar, the walls of which were lined with barrels.

It was dark and dimly lit by the lantern Oliver placed on the table. The ground was cobbled stone lay atop dirt and the air was thick and stale.

“Why did you come?” Oliver asked, his eyes trained to her as she floated around the table at the centre of the room  
“You asked me to” she replied, tipping her head only slightly over her shoulder to glance back at him for a lingered second  
“Would you do anything I ask?”  
“No” she breathed, the word spoken with a smile “but you could ask it all the same” she added as she made her way down the table, walking its full circumference to put her back in front of him, her palms flat against the weathered and knotted wood, the lip of the table hard against the small of her back

“Let me kiss you” he spoke, gravel thick through his voice  
Felicity’s lips stayed poised, parted by a hair’s breadth as she watched the pools of his eyes grow deeper.

“Here” she finally replied as she touched a delicate finger to her collarbone  
She watched as Oliver swallowed her words before his arms slipped between her arms and his palms braced against the table, his little fingers skimming her thumbs.

His lips sunk into her exposed skin, forming around her finger before she slipped it away. His tongue swept over the surface of her creamy skin but stayed hidden behind his lips as his hot breath fanned across her clavicle.

His lips moved in waves that never lifted from her, kneading into her delicate flesh as his tongue tasted every part of it. Oliver was famished, desperate and filled with insurmountable amounts of desire that he thought his will might be snapped if she asked him to stop.

His fingers dug into the porous finish of the table, the pain of the splintered wood in his fingertips not enough to drag him away from the taste of what she offered to him. He was desperate for more, the hunger stirring in him like a fire that could not be snuffed out.

The glow of the lantern danced mesmeric lines across the room and gave the illusion of fire whips across her face. Felicity felt her name taper from his lips and bleed into her skin as his mouth never strayed from the place she had allowed him.

She took her hand and pressed it to his upper chest, feeling the way his muscles constricted underneath it. She could feel his heart pounding like the rumble of an army of horses crossing the plains.

Without reason she found herself imaging the way his body would look once stripped of the veil of clothes, whether his muscles would be as taunt as they felt in her hand now. Was his body plagued by the perils of war, scarred and maimed; or had his vanity of the same kept him from engaging with his army? She tipped her mind to wonder whether his hands would be rough against her breasts and whether his lips would be soft.

Would he love her like a man that had time to spend; or like a wolf eager to devour its spoils?

Either way, he would do neither tonight.  
She firmed her hand against his chest and pushed him back, breaking the warm seal that had melted into her skin.  
“I wish to retire to my room now my Lord” she whispered into the small space between them

Oliver licked his lips, the taste of her still to be found there as he twisted a finger through a loose curl of hair that framed her alluring face.  
“Alone?” he asked, though he already knew her answer  
“Yes my Lord, if that does not displease you”  
“I told you” he smiled, his other hand now coming to rest against her cheek “I will not take what I am not offered”

The pulling across his core had not subsided and it took every store of willpower he had to pull away from her when she asked it. He had had many willing lovers in the past and none had ever asked him to stop as she had; but none had ever filled his mind so completely as she had either.

One day, he hoped, she would stand naked before him, her skin warmed by fire and her rounded breasts lifting and sinking with each breath she took. Her sinful lips would speak his name, beckoning him to put his hands on her, offering to him everything he wanted, he needed.

That would be a thing worth waiting for.

* * *

 

**AN: The map has been updated, find it[here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9892529/chapters/22173770) **


	6. Harbinger

****

**[1 November 1150]**

Days passed and Oliver’s mind grew distracted. Felicity stole most waking moments and in his mind she visited him at night. His lips couldn’t taste wine without imagining it been drunk from the soft slopes of her breast. He wanted to taste her, to feel her legs slung over his shoulders as he took her spoils, his name bleeding from her red lips.

And yet, when morning came and she was not naked in his arms his heart sunk a little deeper and the pull across his core became tighter.

“Your eyes betray you” Raisa spoke as she collected the dishes with remnants of breakfast from the table where Oliver sat in his chambers  
“You do not need to wait on me” he smiled, although aware that the older woman used these times to bestow words on him that could not be spoken at any other time

She smiled knowingly as she tapped his shoulder.  
“She is in your mind now”  
Oliver nodded as he let his eyes roam outside the window, watching birds lift off the still lake  
“Perhaps your heart too”

Oliver let her words sink in. It had not yet been a month since he had invited Felicity to Verdant and love was such a perilous emotion, he was unsure if you could find it in such a short timeframe. His heart however grew weary at the thought of being without her and his mind was clouded beyond recognition. Whatever spell she had cast over him was working, perhaps _that_ was love.

“I could not ask her to love a man like me with hands ruined as these” he replied softly, his voice much kinder with the older woman he had known since childhood  
“Every one of us deserves redemption, you are no different my son” Raisa soothed, her tone an informal one that was only ever shared behind closed doors

“Not mine, I have taken lives without restraint” Oliver confided as his eyes tracked the lines of his palm, remembering times when they were covered in blood not his own “I still hear them screaming. In the name of my father I carried his sins and added my own”

His heart grew heavy imagining how Felicity’s face might twist and her body might recoil if she knew the things he had seen, the things he had done. Flames licked at walls, woman fell beside their husbands. Death on a battlefield was noble. What he had seen was not.

“You are not him” she asserted, her voice sharper than before  
“I wear his emblem and I’m sworn to his Order”  
“That is not your legacy, my son, you build your own”  
“I tried that” Oliver sighed  
The ring Roy had bought back had been him trying, him failing.

“Let us not talk of it anymore. Will Felicity join you for the hunt today?”  
Oliver glanced up, glad for the way Raisa always knew when a change of topic was needed, this being no exception.

“She will” he simpered with a lingered smile threaded across his lips  
_She will._

***~*~*~***

  
“Oliver loves hunting” Thea exclaimed as her and Felicity sat back from the men, their horses digging their front hoofs into the ground  
“He does this on the same day, every year. It’s a tradition” she continued as her gloved hands twisted around the leather reins

Felicity nodded to acknowledge the words. The wind was bitingly cold even for November but the high sun had already melted the morning’s frost and the blue sky was sharply clearly. Thea had clothed herself in a heavy cloak with a fur-lined hood but the cold did not bother Felicity so she went without a cloak, dressing instead in an ivory dress with a fleur de lis pattern embroidered in golden thread.

“I’m sad my father can no longer come” Thea sighed  
“And what do the ladies do?” Felicity asked as she watched the men, Oliver, Slade, John and Roy search the wooded area ahead of them for life

“We watch, perhaps Oliver will let you lose his arrow” Thea shrugged, unbothered by simple observation of it

Felicity watched as Roy turned, kneeled to tend to one of the dogs and smiled briefly back at Thea. She returned his smile with a blushed one of her own before she dropped her chin to her chest to disguise a far more revealing smile.

“Who is that young one?” Felicity asked as her head nodded towards Roy  
“Roy, my brother’s understudy, his sire before that” Thea replied, her face still a blush

Felicity’s eyes roved around the crowd, Moira and Laurel were there but set back from where Thea and Felicity stood, Sara was near to them, but appeared in her own little world, it was safe for Felicity to assume her next words would be heard by Thea only.

“Does your brother know?”  
“Know what?” Thea asked, though the way her jaw constricted as she swallowed led Felicity to believe the young lady knew exactly what Felicity was asking  
“You and the understudy. Does your brother know?”  
Thea’s eyes grew frightened and her brows pinched in tightly  
“How did you know?” she asked meekly  
“You must end it, and soon, no good will come from it” Felicity spoke, her words hushed but forceful  
Perhaps she had grown genuinely fond of the young Queen or perhaps Felicity knew that a scandal through the Castle could push things off course, either way she knew nothing good would come of Thea’s entanglement with an understudy.

Felicity walked her horse to where Oliver was stood, leaving Thea to think on her parting words.  
“Coventry to the North will take a week’s journey at most. They have barely a farmer and a boy to pick up arms, they will be taken in a day, two at most. That is if they don’t open their gates to us when they see us coming. Preparations have already started, once the other’s arrive we can leave within two days my Lord” Slade spoke, his voice peppered with excitement at the prospect

“We will talk about it later” Oliver remarked as his eyes drew back to Felicity  
“I’m sorry, I did not mean to interrupt” she smiled wistfully “but I was getting bored simply waiting back there”  
Oliver helped her from her horse with his hands tightly around her waist. Her body slid down his until her feet landed softly on the ground.  
“There is a red deer on the fringes of the forest, can you see her?” Oliver whispered as he turned Felicity in direction of the curious hind.

“She’s beautiful” Felicity breathed, her neck warmed with the misted breath Oliver fanned across it  
“Will you kiss my arrow for good luck?” Oliver asked as he pulled one from the quiver and brushed the fletching against her stained red lips

“You don’t need luck” Slade grinned as his eyes ferociously watched the deer  
“Oliver never misses” John added, reading the question on Felicity’s face  
“Is this true?” she asked as she watched Oliver nock the arrow

“Never say never” he smiled, but his inference was clear, he had never missed  
Felicity walked her fingers up his cocked arm and breezed in against his back. She leaned against him, his body not faltering at the weight of her as she lifted herself onto her toes and pressed her lips to his ear  
“Miss” she whispered, drawing out the word like a soft breeze against his face

Oliver moved his poised arms just a hair’s breadth to the left and let go of the arrow. It soared through the air and disappeared into the forest, missing the deer.

“I suppose there is a first time for everything” Oliver smirked as John looked at him with a raised brow  
“Shall we see where it landed?” Felicity asked as she started down the small bramble

Everyone there knew it was unnecessary to find the arrow, knowing that the shaft of it would likely be bent and unusable, but no one stopped them as Oliver and Felicity headed the quarter mile walk to the forest.

The thicket of trees shrouded them and the noise of the dogs grew distant. The air grew mossy and damp as the ground grew soft underfoot. Canopies of trees sheltered them from the sun as they reached the clearing where the arrow hand embedded itself in the trunk of a tree.

Felicity smiled as she swept the skirt of her ivory dress over a hollowed log that was buried amongst the forest undergrowth.

“You missed my Lord” she smiled, her luscious lips glossed by her tongue as she reached out, using the fallen log for height and plucked the arrow like a thorn from the tree  
“You asked me to” Oliver replied, his steps following hers but stopping alongside the log

“I did” she quipped as she placed her hands on his shoulders, the height of the tree putting her head above his  
“You did”  
Oliver sunk his hands into her waist and gently lifted her down, his mind caught up on how perfectly his hands formed around her and how weightless she felt in his arms

Flashes of her invaded him mind – lifting her against the wall, her hands grasping at the tapestries hung behind her. Her voice rich with the rasp of his name. Her breasts heaving through her pleasure. Her smell wet and hot with the scent of him. His cock deep inside her, sliding against her tight walls on the precipice of his release. Flashes that left as quickly as they have come.

He lowered her, letting her feet ease down onto the forest floor. His hands stayed around her, unwilling to move unless she asked it of him. She dropped the splintered arrow to the floor, the shaft of it now too bent to fire straight.

“And what shall your reward be?” she tipped her lips into the faintest of smiles as she watched the sweat glisten across his brow

She slipped away from his hands and Oliver left them to hang in mid-air, desperate for her to fill the space between them once more.

“You kissed me here last time, do you remember?” Felicity ask as she flittered a light touch along her collar bone  
“My lips have never forgotten” Oliver remarked as his tongue absently swiped across his swollen lip, hungry to taste her

Felicity smiled as she stepped backwards until her back was pressed against the trunk of a tree that had seen many seasons and weathered many storms. Her fingers looped through the tie at the front of her cote, toying with the silk ribbon between her slender fingers.

Her eyes stayed on him and his never bowed from her as she pulled the knot loose and the centre of the dress fell open. She slowly eased the ribbon from each loop until she could slip the dress from her shoulders.

Felicity drunk in his eyes. Watching his hands clench and his throat constrict with every movement she made. The cool forest air brushed over her exposed shoulder sending a spray of goose bumps across her skin. She held the fabric tight at the centre of her breastbone, her fingers sinking in around the bunched fabric as she shrugged it further down her arm exposing the top of her breast, the hollow of her dress grazing against her nipple.

“Today you shall kiss me here” she invited as she danced a finger across the rise of her creamy breast

Oliver needed no more of an invitation as his body swooped in around her, despite his stature his touch was gentle and considered, but his eyes gave away much more of his primal desires, the irises tipped in black that seemed to bleed out from the pupil. She could smell his need trapped in the sweat beaded across his forehead and she could see it in the gnaw line across his bottom lip.

His lips did not make contact with her smooth skin as suddenly as they had the first time, instead it was his nose that brushed against her, breathing her in and holding the sweet notes of her skin for all his senses to enjoy. When his nose had had its full his lips slowly fell against her. They were warm and wet, misted in his own eager breath as they swam against her.

His tongue lathed and stroked the soft flesh of her breast, letting it mould around his lips before his teeth lightly nipped at it. His left hand sunk into the curve of her neck and his thumb rolled over her lips, dragging them slowly to the corner before letting them loose.

His chin grazed against her breast, charming her nipple to bud tightly underneath it, the thin fabric of her chemise doing little to disguise it. In that moment Oliver realised he would give whatever she asked of him if she allowed him just a second to taste it.

Oliver breathed her name in drawn out syllables and feathered it across her supple breast as his right hand slipped under her dress and drew fevered lines up her thigh, stopping just shy of the part that was not yet offered as his to enjoy.

Felicity closed her eyes, letting the sensations sweep over her. Her mind became clouded, foggy as she found herself twisting her hips against his sturdy leg, seeking out some friction between them. She knew her mind could not remain separated from the throws of passion and that, while her will was strong, she would relent a little more to Oliver to gain his trust, and his heart.

She was so sure that she could do both – allow the passion to be read on her face, in her words and seeped in her body’s response; but be able to shut her emotions off from it. She had not known love, but as the years grew on her she had learnt the idea of it was a powerful thing.

Oliver broke his lips from her skin and let his eyes scour her face.  
“You have me” he breathed, his words shallow and rasped  
“My Lord?” Felicity replied, her fingers tracking down his cheek and grazing against his stubble  
“How is it that I have no other thoughts but of you these past weeks?”  
“Does this disturb you my Lord?”  
“No” he sighed as he nestled his head into her palm

“But are you mine?”  
“I do not understand?”  
“I am a jealous man and I cannot share you with another”  
“Are you asking me if there is, or are you telling me that there cannot be?” she asked, a smile tipping up the corner of her mouth as she watched the lines across his brow deepen in thought

“Do not think me a weak man, but both” Oliver replied, desperate to know his desire for her would not go unrequited  
Felicity pressed a tender kiss over the lines of his eye before she danced her lips against his ear  
“There is no other” she whispered as her lips caved around his lobe  
She pulled back, leaving the second part of his question unanswered.

Oliver swallowed down his desire to ask again for her to remain his. Felicity saw the indecision trapeze through his eyes and etched in his brow, but she let it hang just a moment longer.

Her lips parted and her hand released the tight grip it had on her dress.  
“Mark me” she spoke like a song caught on the breeze as her dress fell further, exposing her breast and the budded nipple that Oliver had felt.

“For as long as I wear a mark from you on my body, I will remain yours” she continued as her hand framed his neck and gently pulled his head against her breast “mark me my Lord and I will be yours”

Oliver lips swept over her breast and his tongue swarmed her nipple, caressing it gently before his teeth hungrily snagged it. His eyes walked up her chest and watched her as her lower lip fell open for a second before she tugged it inward and her teeth scraped against it, biting it a fresher shade of red.

His teeth sunk into her and her body jolted in his arms but her eyes stayed open and affixed on his, matching the hunger he felt within himself.

Her breast caved around his mouth, sinking deeper into the warmth of it and moulding to his every whim. His tongue batted her nipple as his hand cupped the underside of her breast, kneading it with a heavy palm. Every carnal want was threaded through that hand and bleeding out onto her skin.

His mouth was desperate to taste her filling him and he pressed the kiss heavier into her until she gasped at it. Her fingers threaded through the strands of his hair at his neck and she tugged them as his pressure grew.

His teeth sunk deeper into her as her skin pulled taunt within his mouth. When finally he pulled back from her a red mark sat hauntingly against the backdrop of her pale complexion.

Felicity’s breath panted through the heavy air of the woody surrounds as her eyes fell to the mark he had left.  
“Now I am yours” she smiled as she folded the dress back over her shoulder, locking away their secret under a veil of clothes.

“You ride soon to the north?” she asked, her mind falling back to the earlier conversation  
“You do not wish me to go?” Oliver replied, his lips twisting into a vivacious smile  
“Why take what you do not need?” she asked as she threaded her dress slowly back up  
“It is not at my request”

Felicity noted the wisps of annoyance caught in his words  
“Then who makes this request of you?”  
“People you are better off not knowing”  
She had hoped he would reveal himself and when he did not she dropped her eyes to the ground to disguise the disappointment of it.

“Better is it not to protect that which you have than spread your army too thin at the pursuit of something you do not care to take?”  
Perhaps pitting Oliver against the orders of those above him might draw out what Felicity sought.

She tied the knot on her dress then stepped closer to him, her breath warmed against his neck as her fingers fanned over his jaw.  
“If someone else wants it, let them bleed to take it” she spoke softly as the sound of clapping hooves approached

Oliver smiled, his voice silent on an answer to her, before he bent down and collected the useless arrow.  
“It’s alright, we found it” he called as two figures approached through the forest

Felicity adjusted her dress discretely and smoothed her palms down the sides of it as John and Slade came into the clearly.  
“My Lord, your mercenaries have arrived. They will be ready to travel again in two days’ time”

Oliver glanced back at Felicity and offered his hand for her to take. She did as she felt the strong eyes of Slade watching her. He was unreadable in his demeanour but she had garnered from what little interactions she had had with him that he wore the face of a man that wanted for more. More responsibility, more nobility, more power – _more_.

***~*~*~***

  
The hunting party arrived back at Verdant to greet the band of mercenaries that had begun to set up an encampment just outside the castle’s gates.

It had taken the travellers much longer to arrive than had been anticipated and Felicity had begun to worry about Cooper, but a bout of fever had ravaged the army and Oliver had demanded they stay clear of the City limits until it had run its course.

Felicity’s eyes searched the faces of strangers looking for one she knew. She smiled when she caught the eyes she had known for a lifetime. His hair was short now and his clothes were that of a stranger, but it was him – it was Cooper.

She felt a weight lift off her heart that he was safe, but a heavy burden as he watched Oliver lay a gentle hand on Felicity’s leg that it may have been a mistake to bring him here.

She was not naïve to his feelings or to the streak of jealousy that he held barely at bay. She had seen it come to fruition once before. She would be foolish not to worry that history may repeat.

“There is nothing of interest for you here” Oliver rasped as he leaned across his horse and pressed a demur kiss to her flushed cheeks, wind burnt from the ride home

She smiled kindly, his actions were a call to anyone that happened to see it. She was his, anyone that crossed the line wouldn’t fare well.

Oliver repeated his orders with a gesture for John to take all the ladies of the party inside the grounds. An encampment of men he had no reason to trust was no place for them. 

* * *

 

**[A Few Hours Later]**

Felicity tugged the heavy winter cloak around her body as she walked light, but hurried steps towards the front gate of the castle. The sun had dimmed somewhat and the air had grown colder, but the cloak served more to hide much of her face than it did to stifle the cold.

Laurel standing amidst the horses in the stable saw Felicity. Her eyes roved the space behind to see if Oliver might be following her only to find it empty. She sunk in behind the wall and watched with beaded eyes as Felicity left the grounds and walked towards the encampment.

“Where are you going?” Laurel whispered to herself as a smile grew over her lips.  
She knew Oliver’s jealous nature and perhaps if she could muddy the angelic face of the one he had become so enamoured with then she could be rid of Felicity and the threat she posed.

Felicity saw Cooper close by, his arms loaded down with stocks of arrows. She steadied her shoulders and dropped her head to make the next few moments seem more realistic.

Her shoulder caught his arm, spinning him on the spot and causing the arrows to spill from his arms, clanking to the ground in a foray that saw a few eyes zoom towards them.

“I’m glad to see you brother” Felicity whispered as she kept her eyes low to the ground, collecting the spilt arrows  
“And I you, although I thought the cold did not bother you?” he smiled, catching her ice blue eyes from behind the fur-lined hood  
She could not spare anymore words explaining, fully aware that there were curious eyes that watched and that at any moment one of the sets might grow some chivalry and help.

“There is an abandoned house on the southern side of the lake, leave now, I will follow soon”  
She stood up and brushed heavy hands down her skirt, swiping away the road dust that had scattered there.  
“I am terrible sorry for that” she announced loudly as a younger man came scuttling over to help

Felicity smiled when she caught Laurel attempting to hide behind a cart a few paces behind her. _Perhaps there was a game to be had._

Felicity rode into town, aware that Laurel was trying to ride at a distance so as not to be noticed. She purchased things she did not need and walked streets she had no interest in being, all the while enjoying as Laurel struggled to keep up. Perhaps it was cruel to continue this any longer, Felicity knew she could lose her in just a few minutes atop a horse. Laurel had neither the form nor the control to ride a horse at high speed and it would have been easy.

But, Felicity decided, perhaps this Laurel could serve another purpose.  
If she was to follow Felicity everywhere it would soon become tiresome, Laurel needed to go – but not because Felicity asked it, but because Oliver did.

His mind was already sided against her, for reasons Felicity did not quite understand – and perhaps were irrelevant, it would not take much to turn him darker on her to the point she was told to leave.

With that in mind she rode a steady, but mild canter through the forest towards the house she had come across in previous jaunts across the countryside, eager to look at Verdant Castle from every vantage point. She had managed these trips without anyone noticing, choosing her times carefully and returning as quickly as she could. It seemed Oliver did not track her comings and goings which was a surprise – but a welcomed one.

She dismounted just outside the door, Laurel had hung back, but Felicity could still hear the sound of cracking branches underfoot. She smiled with a slight shake of her head, Laurel couldn’t sneak up on a blind person.

Cooper had already seen to blackening the windows and the room was dark when Felicity entered. Only a small candle flickered its light on a dusty table.  
“I was beginning to wonder where you were” he spoke, his body propped up against the back wall, his heavy shoes drawing lines in the film of dirt across the floor

“I am here now. The army took so long to come, I was worried about you brother” she smiled as she crossed the room and pulled him into an embrace  
Cooper’s arms folded around her and he closed his eyes to remember it. Although he knew the fight she possessed, it was in moments like these where he almost allowed himself to think her fragile and in need of his protection.

His heart stung every time she pulled away; and this time was no exception to that.  
“Have you found anything out about your parents?” he asked, masking his pain with words unrelated  
“No, but I believe I have started him down the track of disobeying the Order”  
“For what purpose?”  
Felicity walked a small circle, pulling back the hood of her cloak as she walked  
“If I can cause division between them then perhaps secrets will be spilled”

“Are you-“ Cooper paused, his tongue rolling over the question he wanted to ask, but afraid for the answer “are you safe with him?”  
Felicity’s brow softened and her eyes watched Cooper carefully. She knew what question he left unsaid.  
“I am well” she answered simply, she knew no answer would bring him peace  
“And has he taken you? Have you given yourself to him?” Cooper questioned, his jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed  
She closed her eyes as she sighed softly and wished in vain that he had not asked that question. No good would come of an answer.

“You know my thoughts brother” she whispered into the stale air that had fallen between them “I will do what it takes”

“Take this” she spoke as she pulled a small mirror from her pocket and folded it into his palm “on the opposite side of the lake you will find a small dig out I have covered with fallen branches. From there you can shine this mirror into my window if you need to talk with me and I will come to you. It is not safe for you to enter Verdant’s walls, Oliver has strictly forbidden men from the mercenaries passage inside”

“Will you leave first, or shall I?”  
Felicity smiled as she envisioned Laurel waiting outside.

“I have a spy following me, and I want her to see you. Shroud your face enough that she cannot recognise it, but be sure to appear manly” Felicity laughed as she placed a kindly hand on his shoulder

He nodded, but offered her no words as he folded a shroud across his mouth and nose but left his hood off, exposing his cropped hair and steeled eyes.  
“Be well sister” he finally spoke as he headed towards the door.

Felicity’s plan had worked, Laurel had seen the man coming from the abandoned house and she had watched Felicity emerge moments later. Her face was awash with pleasure at the prospect of regaling Oliver with everything she had seen tonight at dinner.

  ***~*~*~***

  
“Why do you interrupt me, can’t you see I’m enjoying spoils Matias” Slade bellowed as he chugged down his mead and slapped the ass of the prostitute who jolted in pain from it

“While you spend your times in brothels, Lord Queen has halted the preparations for travel” Matias, a stocky man with a crocked smile, spat as he rudely jostled the half-naked woman out of the bedroom  
“Why would he do that?” Slade jeered as he aggressively pulled his shirt on  
“Whispers around the garrison are that he wants to ensure Starling is well protected before he will travel”

Slade paced around the room on angry feet before he flipped a small reading table over in rage. That victory was to be his glory, the Order was to see how he managed armies under his control and how he shed blood in their name. They were to give him what he wanted, what he _needed_.

He had seen Oliver be persuaded to miss a shot he had never before missed. He had seen him be persuaded to issue a proclamation that took an assumed title from Laurel. He had seen him persuaded to build fortifications so different to those previously built; and as the cogs slowly turned in Slade’s head, he decided that perhaps the person who persuaded him to do all these things could be useful to him also.

* * *

  
**[Back at Verdant]**

Felicity was back behind the walls at Verdant just as evening approached. She had lost Laurel on the way back which had been just as easy as she thought it would be. She was sure that Laurel wouldn’t be able to hold her tongue for long and she hoped that tonight’s dinner would prove to be quite entertaining.

It was along the stone path near the fountain where Felicity heard the heavy crunch of a man walking up fast behind her. She stopped and turned to be met with Slade’s face. She had not had the pleasure of seeing him up close before and it was only now she noticed how his skin had almost grown around the black patch he wore over his right eye, it was red and puckered, like a claw of skin encasing leather.

“I can see why Oliver is taken with you” he smiled, his one eye roving unrepentantly across her form  
“You are so informal that you use his first name?” she quipped, turning back around to continue her walk  
“We are like brothers” he growled in a guttural tone that she could not decide was to be a show of manliness or to incite fear

As his hand snapped around her slender arm she decided it was the latter. He turned her around with a force that was not to be mistaken as gentle and while she could have escaped from his grip she planned on seeing just where he was going with this display out in the open.

“You are quite lovely, his Felicity” he breathed, leaning in too close to be acceptable  
“I will ask you to mind your distance, your brother would ask it too” she scolded, jerking her arm to pressure him to release it  
“He would not have to know”  
“And yet, I would tell him”

“You have his ear do you not?”  
“You ask a question you already believe you have the answer for”  
“Tell him to march to Coventry, their coffers are loaded down, he could buy you finery that would be yours to keep. Prominence will be yours”

“So it is a fight you wish for”  
“That is the glory of man is it not?”  
“I am not a man, what would I know of his glory”  
Her eyes dropped to her arm, still caught in his grip. Finally he opened his hand and released her. Her arm throbbed as the blood returned, she would be surprised if his fingers did not leave a mark.

“Tell me before I leave you, who do you believe lasts longer in battle, the man with no shield but a good and straight sword, or the man with no sword but with a hard and impenetrable shield?” she asked her eyes daring him to answer without blinking away  
“The sword” he laughed, clearly amused that the question had even been asked  
“And yet, the man swinging the sword will tire quicker, his arms will become weaker and when his strength has all but left him, the one who stayed safe under the shield will simply pluck it from his hand” she spoke quietly as her fingers stealthily wrapped around the dagger at his waist.

Before he even felt it slip from the sheath Felicity had the tip of the blade pinched against his throat.  
“And run the man through with his own sword” she finished as her eyes darkened at his

He stared at her with unsurmountable rage and the standoff between them lasted for what seemed like a lifetime before Slade stepped back and raised his hands in defeat.

“I will ask you to never put your hands on me, or any other woman that does not wish them there, ever again” she hissed, dropping the dagger to the ground

She walked a few steps backwards, her eyes staying affixed to his before her feet met with the start of the castle stairs. Her eyes travelled up to the sky to watch the start of the falling sun – it was time to ready herself for dinner.

* * *

  
The moon was heavy and the night was well and truly thick as a roaring fire warmed the dining hall and food lay spread across the table.

Felicity had been the only one not surprised when had Laurel took a seat next to Sara, her dress a particularly lavish red and black brocade and her hair weaved into tight braids that criss-crossed the top of her head like a makeshift crown she seemed eager to wear.

It was already well into the meal when Sara met Felicity’s eyes and raised her cup towards her just the start of a tipped smile at the corner of her satin red lips. Felicity replied in kind before taking a long drink from the brass goblet. She could not read Sara as easily as the others sat around the table but Felicity had decided to keep the unknown close.

“It’s nice to see you Laurel, you have made yourself so scarce since my arrival” Felicity spoke as a lazy hand she knew was been watched by Oliver drew a line over her dress where he had left his mark that morning

“I have been feeling morose” Laurel replied, unable to hide the scathing tone she spun through each word  
“Perhaps practicing a smile over a scowl might help your mood” Thea chimed in as she tore a bread roll  
Felicity tempered any smile from forming on her face but Sara was unrepentant with hers even when Laurel kicked her under the table.

“Never mind, I have reason to smile now” Laurel quipped, fanning her fingers through her loose hair at the nape of her neck  
Her eyes tracked over to Oliver who had paid little to no mind to what had been said, his attentions lathered on Felicity and the slow dance her finger made above her breast.

Laurel cleared her throat hoping in vain that it would steal his attention. It did not.  
“Is there something caught in your throat?” Felicity asked as her hand slipped under the table and came to rest on Oliver’s knee.

Oliver found himself shifting his seat at the head of the table closer to Felicity who sat on the first chair on his right, his mother to the left. He didn’t stifle the smile that grew across his face when her fingers dug into his leg, her nails felt even through the thickness of his trousers. His mind was ravaged with thoughts of her, of seeing how the mark her had left on her might have flourished over the course of the day.

“My Lord, I have a pressing matter” Laurel announced, her voice frustrated that he was so apathetic to her presence  
Still he continued to be deafened to her voice, consumed instead by a small freckle that sat like a beacon just below Felicity’s ear lobe.

“My Lord” Felicity whispered as she leaned over the corner of the table to catch his attention  
“Apologies, my mind wandered” he explained before his tongue slipped across his hungry lip and his eyes walked up to meet with hers  
“It appears Lady-“ she paused “I mean Laurel has a pressing matter”  
Felicity caught the glean I’m Thea’s eye and the smile Sara flashed. They had both caught the clear jibe and judging by the clench of her teeth neither had Laurel.

“Can it wait?” Oliver sighed, finally repenting to giving her a half-hearted look  
“I don’t know can the treachery of someone wait to be exposed? Or would you like to know the kind of harlot you’ve warmed your lips on”

“Don’t you dare speak to her like that” Thea raged, as though the words had been a personal attack to her  
“My sister is correct, your vile words have no place here” Oliver added, the vein at his temple pulsing thickly

“Ask your precious Felicity where she went today, who she met with, whose lips ravaged her body. She mocks you my Lord, takes from you just to be with another. Ask her!” Laurel screamed, her voice cracking at the seams.

“You do not owe this horse an explanation” Thea goaded  
“If you ask it of me my Lord I will tell you” Felicity spoke calmly as her hidden hand smoothed lines up Oliver’s thigh

“I do not need to ask you” Oliver replied as he lay his hand atop hers, burying it beneath  
“She is your Eve, sent to deceive you” Laurel pleaded, as she raised from the table  
“Enough” Oliver roared “She is no prisoner within these walls”

“She lies with another, a chamber maid saw a mark left on her from him, above her breast, she mocks your good graces and defiles your bed”  
“I said enough” Oliver roared as he stood up, the chair he was seated on sent flying backwards and his hands slammed into the table

“My Lord, the lover’s mark” Laurel whimpered, her act suddenly changing in the hopes he might take pity on her “make her show it to you”  
“I left that mark, they were my lips that ravaged her body, that tasted her breast” his eyes grew dark and hungry, his mouth grew parched for her

“Leave this table before you make an even bigger fool of yourself” he ordered without a hint of uncertainty  
“But my Lord..”  
“I will have you escorted out if I must”

Laurel threw down her hands against the table jolting the dinnerware before she yanked Sara from her seat and stormed out of the room.

Felicity hid her enjoyment well. Laurel had made a fool of herself in a way that would not easily be forgiven.

***~*~*~***

  
The same heavy curtain of darkness also hid two shadows met in secret in the eerily silent Mill house.

Chaffed lined the floor and the smell of wheat was still strong from the day’s work.  
“The woman in Havenrock, she wasn’t part of the plan” the cloaked figure rasped, his face completed hidden in shadows  
“Plans change” came the muffled response of the stocky man with the crocked smile  
“Mine don’t”  
“You don’t make all the plans neither. We had orders that didn’t come from you”  
“Perhaps you can deliver a message for me to the man they _did_ come from”  
“Make it short, I don’t like to have to remember things”  
“That’s fine” a blade slowly emerged from the darkness “you won’t need to speak a word”

The blade pierced through his throat, stifling any scream the man may have expelled. Blood sprayed across the grinding stones and stained the wooden walls.

He caught the man before his body hit the ground and lowered him slowly. There was a message to be sent; a harbinger of blood

  
 


	7. Scorn

 

“Your eyes look troubled my Lord” Felicity noted as her and Oliver stood near the mantle of the fire, amber hues of flames licking up the sides of the charred stone fireplace

Dinner had been over for some time and Oliver had spoken little during the course of it after Laurel and Sara left. Perhaps Felicity had pushed his good graces too far, perhaps she had misjudged just what he might be willing to overlooked.

His face seemed agitated and his brow was filled with worry, she did not think this played to misguided loyalty to Laurel – Felicity was willing to bet he had little to none of that, but something surely weighted his mood.

She knew she needed to pull back, let his feelings simmer for some months now. The flame that burns the hottest also dies much sooner; and while the roots of her plan were grounded, her stay within the walls of Verdant had only been a fledgling one. She needed to gain much more than Oliver’s eye – his sexual desires – if she was learn the secrets these walls kept.

Oliver looked over as Felicity, his eyes showing a measure of gratitude that she could read his emotions – perhaps more clearly than he could read his own.

“Do you believe what Laurel spoke?” Felicity asked as her hand slid down his taunt bicep as his arms stood braced and outstretched against the mantle

“No” he shook his head softly, his head dropping between his arms, almost defeated “that’s not it”  
She feathered fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, testing to see whether he would pull back from such advances, but he did not, if anything his body relaxed into them, a whispered sigh breaking from his lips at the contact.

“Then why do you carry the weight of the world between your eyes my Lord?” Felicity whispered before she pressed a gentle kiss to the tip of his ear

Oliver’s eyes, shielded by his arms, softly closed. There was much that troubled him, Felicity was right about that, much of it sat like heavy coals within his stomach, fallen embers that slowly scarred him. He wanted to tell her everything, to lay his head on her lap and speak of all the things that pulled at him.

His lineage.  
His sins.  
His attempt at redemption.

But as he lifted his head to look at her, the orange flecks of fire reflecting from the heavenly pools of her eyes, he could not – once more – shake the feeling that he knew them so well.

His hands shifted from atop the mantle and without words they wrapped over her cheeks, slightly warmed with the heat from the fire. He tipped her head up as he tipped his own down.

Oliver’s eyes dove into hers as though within them held the answer to any question his mind could conjure. The sweet slope of them, the darkened lashes that bled out from them, the blue that was as rich and faceted as azurite – it was all so familiar.

But as his eyes delved deeper he saw something else. Something he had not seen before.

Had he been so taken by her beauty, so moved by her charm and grace that he had ignored the flint lodged in there?

It was just a flicker, just a moment.  
It was masked by a smile and doe eyes with fanned lashes  
But it was there.  
He saw it.  
Her eyes were laced with just a splinter of scorn.

A sudden and high-pitched scream pierced through the halls and stole the attention of everyone inside. A bell rung out in the distance and like a bull charging through a field of corn chaos erupted in the wake of it.

***~*~*~***

The man was dead, Felicity could tell the moment her eyes fell onto him from the stairs. The sobs of the maid who had found him and those huddled beside her could be heard through the crisp night air and the soldiers’ feet skidding across the gravel.

Felicity had followed Oliver out through the Great Hall and into the chaos of the night where Oliver had ordered her to stay on the stairs as he went further into the midst of it.

The body was predominantly splayed on the stones that surrounded the fountain. His shirt was torn from his body and his chest was carved with a symbol that Felicity recognised even in the limited light of torches and from the distance Oliver had pleaded with her to stay.

Scored into his flesh with blood lining each line, was the insignia of the Templar Order.

Someone was sending a message.

“Has anyone come in or out of these gates?” Oliver interrogated as he grabbed the arm of the soldier who was closest to him  
“No my Lord, they have been closed since the last delivery from the Mill an hour ago” the nervous man answered, his voice weary and confused

Oliver dropped the man’s arms and ran a heavy and troubled hand through his hair, tugging at strands and scratching nails against his scalp. He too read the message.

His eyes snapped up to John who was beside him, his wide arms folded over each other, a pensive expression trapped on his face.

“Lock the estate house down with my family inside and triple the guard. No one goes in or out of there. Shutter the windows and send the extra staff home” he instructed as his mind worked through a multitude of scenarios he could not bear to see happen

John nodded, passing on the orders with little more than stunted words and nods to a group of trusted men nearby.

Oliver’s eyes floated back towards Felicity, the night’s breezes had her hair whipped up against her luminescent skin and her arms were slipped around her waist. Her eyes were trained down at the dead man, unflinching – she had seen death before.

“And her?” John asked, following Oliver’s eyes with his own  
“Take her to her chambers, shutter the windows and lock her inside. Post two guards outside her door and two of the female staff inside. No one goes in and no one goes out without me” Oliver ordered as his eyes refused to be torn away from her  
“And what should I tell her?”  
“Nothing” Oliver remarked, the word hung like a noose in the air

* * *

  
**[Later that Night]**

Oliver’s feet were heavy down the hall, his cloak flared like a fan around his ankles as he walked with both speed and purpose. To Oliver the inference was clear, the message from those within his own. You don’t get redemption.

You belong.  
You live for us, you die for us.  
His heart was heavy with the knowledge a man he barely knew paid the price to bring him that message.

He slowed his steps as the guards stationed outside Felicity’s bowed their heads at his presence.  
“No one has come in or out” one advised  
“Good, stay here” Oliver ordered with a furrowed brow as he knocked with three loud bangs on Felicity’s door before he pushed the heavy door open himself and stepped inside.

Felicity was sat at a writing desk across the room, candlelight illuminating the parchment she was scrawling words across. It was rare to see an educated woman, even more so one who did not appear of noble birth. There was more to Felicity, he was sure of it.

“She wouldn’t let us help her change my Lord, insisted that she didn’t need our help although we did offer” the older of the two maids explained in a low tone as she met Oliver by the door  
Oliver nodded slowly, he was unsurprised by Felicity’s stubbornness, she seemed ill-equipped to accept help when she did not wish for it.  
“You may leave us” Oliver spoke as he drew the door open for them, watched them leave with shuffled feet and closed the heavy door behind them

Felicity never looked up from the paper that had stolen her attention and although his eyes ravaged her she refused to allow hers to do the same.

“You are mad with me” he spoke, not as a question but as something he knew to be the truth  
“Just this night you told me I was not a prisoner within these walls, and yet” she sighed, laying down the quill on the parchment before she turned her knees in the chair and twisted her eyes back towards him

“You are here for your own safety” Oliver remarked as he took tentative steps towards her  
“From who?” she asked as she let her attention fall back to the ink pot, her slender fingers easing the small plug into the bottle neck

“I don’t know” Oliver sighed, the wisps of regret woven through those simple words  
“Did you know the man that died?” Felicity asked with her chin now rested on her shoulder  
“His name was Matias, he was infantry within the army, I did not know him well, he served under Slade”

The mention of his name made Felicity’s jaw tense. She did not trust that man and she could not understand how Oliver could. There was something venomous about the way he spoke. He was not a man to turn your back on.

“You drew away from me in the dining hall, why?” she asked as she stood from the desk and sashayed towards the bed, putting a few more feet of distance between them  
“I thought I saw something in your eyes” he replied, following her across the room, his hands anxious to feel her beneath them  
“What?” her word was drawn out, the question lightly frosted with a smile

“A familiarity, as though I have stared into them before” he answered as his feet halted within arms reach of her  
She folded golden hair behind her ear, the adornment of pearl earrings still gracing them, and it was only in this moment Oliver saw the hole further up her ear that looked as though it once too carried an earring. He would ask her about it one day.

“And?” she queried, her stained lips staying parted for a breath before she continued “you hold something back from me”  
She could recognise the hesitation in his voice and the anxiety in his eyes, there was more to his withdrawal from her; she knew it.

Oliver paced a small circle as he debated his answer. He knew what he saw, but to let the word fall from his lips would cemented it. Once it was said, it could not be recalled.  
“Scorn” he breathed, his face turned from hers

Felicity hid her surprise without letting the softly winged smile flinch from her lips. The spell she had weaved around him was wearing thin and he was starting to look behind the veil of a pretty face. As her fingers twisted tightly around her mother’s keepsake necklace, she knew she would need to bury herself deeper. _Work in the dark to serve the light._

“Your hands turn white around this” Oliver mused as his finger threaded through the gold chain, her fingers dropping it almost immediately “and you have not denied my words”

“I do not love you” she whispered as her eyes sunk to the floor, his fingers still grazed against her décolletage  
She noticed his expression tightened through his jaw and across his eyes – _had he expected she did?_

She lifted her eyes, sealing the scorn deep behind them.  
“My heart is unsure even what love is. You do not see scorn my Lord, you see fear”  
“You are afraid of me?” he inquired wistfully  
“No more so than a spider fears a fly will break her web” she coyly replied with her eyes locked into his in an unwavering resolve before she dropped them slowly, afraid he might see more truth in her next words than she was willing to let go of.  
“But I fear love. I do not understand it and we fear that which we cannot understand”

Oliver held her neck and her head lulled into his palm.  
“You have been loved before?” he asked, the words soft and without judgment  
“I have felt the touch of men and perhaps they loved me” she whispered, her eyes closed “but my heart was never theirs to possess” she continued as her eyes slowly opened, an honest tear trapped beneath the surface

Felicity knew her words would test the depth of his infatuation with her. To admit that she was not a virgin would balance his affection on a knife’s edge and most men would reject the same, despite their own bodies being far from innocent.

But, Oliver did not flinch, nor draw his hand away from her face.

“I will leave if you ask me to my Lord” she breathed, her words sodden with feigned trepidation  
“No” Oliver spoke, his voice almost as a plea “perhaps we will find an end to both our fears”

She let a breathy sigh falls from her lips and frame around the softest of laughs.  
“And what do you fear?” she asked  
Oliver looked away, the ground capturing his attention for just a moment before he looked back up, his eyes glistened with emotion  
“Being loved” he answered, his voice barely above a whisper

They both let the answer hang between them, faint whispers of it echoed from the high ceilings and the stone walls long after the words had been spoken.

“I will retire to my room now” Oliver sighed, letting his palm slip from her face “ _please_ stay in here”  
Felicity swallowed down her instinctive nature to fight confines of any kind, but this was not an argument she should be having.

“Tomorrow if you wish to stay I will ask you to journey to another place a few hours by coach, you will accompany my mother and sister there until it is safe to return” Oliver spoke, his words soft but without mitigation within them.

If Felicity wished to stay with him then she goes where he asks; or if she wishes to leave he will see it happen.

She watched him walk towards the door, his steps were lumbered and slow.  
“My Lord?” she called, stopping him mid stride  
He turned his head to glance back at her, willing for any reason to stay a few moments longer

Felicity turned her back to him and let her fingers lightly dance against the top of her spine where her Court dress was laced with ribbon.  
“Could you unfasten it for me please?” she asked as her free hand pulled her hair over her shoulder

She heard his heavy exhale drop in the space between them before she heard the fast and resolute steps of him walking near.

His hands swarmed over her fingers before she drew them slowly back, letting them linger sometime on the curve of her shoulder. As slowly as he could he threaded the knot from the ribbon as he let his calloused hands brush against her silken skin.

Felicity felt each slow tug he made as he unravelled the twisted ribbon. His breath fanned across her neck, warm and lightly misted. She held the dress against her chest as the back of it gave way. The chill spread down her spine like a slip of ice as she listened to his breath rasp and deepen.

Oliver swallowed down the desires that were flourishing through his hands and coursing across his lips. He wanted to touch her, to taste her, to feel her skin constrict and move under his attentions.

The lust felt like fire on the pads of his fingers and like a drought in his mouth. He reached the last thread and stepped back to admire the slow slope of her back, now beautifully exposed to him.

He stepped further away despite his desire to linger. Felicity felt his presence move and she twisted her head to watch him leave.

“Here my Lord” she whispered, stopping his tracks once more as she pointed to the small of her back “will you kiss me here?”

His fingers swept down the side of her face, across her shoulder and down her arm before he took her hand in his own and moved them together around the carved oak bedpost. The silk curtains grazed her arm softly as he mirrored the same movement to her other arm until they were coiled around the post and her breasts were pressed against it, precariously holding her dress up where her hands had once gripped it.

She lulled her eyes closed as a single finger glided down her spine and caused a tumble of peppered goose bumps to follow in the wake of it.

He knelt down behind her and propped himself up on his knees. The aroma of her skin – like that of lilac bushes – filled his every sense and his lips could no longer resist.

He kissed her softly, with a touch that felt imagined, his lips pressing in against her skin, his tongue lightly drinking in the single drop of sweat he found there. She keened at the sensation, much slower, softer, passionate than ones that had come before. He touched her like no man ever had – with hands that were afraid to damage her porcelain skin and with lips that only begged for her pleasure.

Her body pressed firm against the bedpost, the groves and rises of it leaving an indentation on her skin. Her face grew hot against the wood as his lips took something from her. Something she had never meant to give.

A tear.

“I need to leave” he whispered the words into her dewy skin, a veil of his breath misted against it  
“Why?” she found herself asking  
“I’m afraid if I stay longer I will forget myself, forget my promise to you” he replied as he rose from the floor, his eyes lingered on the barely pink blemish his beard had left against her creamy skin.

Visions of her screamed through his head, she was bent over, naked, his lips wrapped over her ass, her breasts buried in the fur of the bear skin rug, his cock drenched in her release..

He stepped back, dropping his hands from her waist.  
“Goodnight Felicity” he sighed, reaching a hand out to just barely feather through her gold hair

Felicity listened to him leave, her heart pummelling her chest and the single tear falling over her flushed cheeks. She let it fall rather than push it away hoping the sting of it would remind her why she was here.

“Nothing is true” she whispered into the grain of the wood “everything is permitted”

***~*~*~***

“Foolish girl, your outburst did you no favours” Moira gritted as she closed herself and Laurel in the Estate’s drawing room.

“She went into a house where a man exited from, I saw it with my own eyes” Laurel replied her face twisted in anger  
“The house was empty and you did not see the man well enough to know who he was, you brought idle words and jealousy” Moira continued as she slunk around the empty room, her eyes trained on generations of family portraits that hung on the walls  
“He hid his face behind a shroud” Laurel sighed, she had only the colour of his hair and that was nothing remarkable

“Did you not think this could have been her plan all along?”  
Laurel opened her mouth to reject the notion, but she could not with any certainty.

“Felicity has Oliver possessed, there is nothing to be had in pitting him against her, you will only lose like you did tonight. She was unsurprised by your presence tonight and did not blink an eye when you spoke. She knew what you would say and you fell right into it”

Laurel shook her head, her hair a tumble of frustrated waves over her shoulders. She did not want to believe it, but she knew it to be right.  
“You promised me a life here, a title and control, how am I to have either if he does not love me?” she snapped back, her lips tightly coiled  
“He has never loved you. Love is unnecessary” Moira assured  
“You never told me what you would get from this”  
“A son only listens to the voice of his mother until another female voice takes his ear, the words you whisper into it will be the ones that will make this family thrive”

“So what do we do?”  
“We wait. We watch. We do not speak at dinner tables”

* * *

  
**[The Next Day]**

Oliver’s idea of a _safe place_ was behind the walls of Saint Martha’s Convent, four hours journey by coach and nestled along the coastline. It’s high walls were surrounded by orchards and crops of grain where a few nuns lingered without looking up from their tasks to acknowledge the approaching carriages.

“A convent?” Felicity commented as the carriages slowed through the open gates and into the courtyard  
“My family has been the benefactor of the place for generations” Thea replied, her eyes tired from the journey “I spent a few summers here for tuition, it’s terribly dull”  
“The vows of chastity and obedience have that effect” Felicity quipped much to Thea’s delight

The carriage door opened and the coachman helped Thea from inside before offering the same courtesy to Felicity who looked down at his gloved hand and shook her head. There was no need to put of a womanly display right now, she could get out of the carriage unaided, and probably blindfolded.

“All weapons stay outside the gate, as do the men” a woman well into her prime of life spoke with an authority that was rare anywhere other than here  
“Sister Evangeline is the Abbess of the convent, she’s terribly strict” Thea whispered into Felicity’s ear as they watched Moira exchange pleasantries

“Lady Thea, it has been some time since we have seen you”  
Thea stiffened under the scrutiny and not for the first time Felicity saw remnants of Oliver in the way her face did little to hide her emotions.  
“Once we settle on a betrothal she will spend some time with you” Moira remarked

Felicity saw Thea swallow each word down as though they choked her. The notion that she would be married off likely before she was 16 should not have come as a surprise to Thea but she looked genuinely horrified at the prospect.

“Soon no doubt” the Abbess spoke with little emotion before her eyes fell to Felicity  
Perhaps it was intuitive, but Felicity could not help but notice the nun clutch tightly to the ornate cross hung around her neck.

“Sister Agatha will see you to your rooms. While we have long respected the Queen family patronage, this is a place of God, please adhere to the rules”  
There was no mistaking who her words were directed to.

***~*~*~***

Sister Agatha was young, barely older than Felicity, with a voice that was scared of itself. She walked in small steps ahead of Thea, Sara, Laurel and Felicity.

“Your rooms are comfortable but simple” she squeaked as she opened four successive doors, Moira would be staying elsewhere “There are no locks on the doors” she admitted with a tipped smile, Felicity decided that very fact had brought Sister Agatha a few trials in her time.

“There are no visitors in your rooms, no men at all” she added that last bit with a pensive smile “You mustn’t leave your room after nine. Meals are served in the refectory”

“I’ll take meals in my room” Laurel snipped and Thea rolled her eyes with unabashed honesty  
“Oh I’m sorry, the food is _only_ served in the refectory” Agatha peeped  
“I’m sure you can make an exception”  
“For who, you? An unwanted guest who out stays her welcome” Thea spat with a vicarious smile  
Laurel’s jaw clenched as did her fist before Sara caught her arm.  
“Lady Thea jokes with you sister, laugh it off”  
Thea shrugged unapologetic.

Agatha looked beyond spooked. Felicity simply admired Thea’s faceless nature, it was not unlike her own once.

“Lauds, the morning prayers start at five in the morning and Compline, the last service of the day is held at six. The Abbess expects you at one if not both” Agatha continued, unsure what she had gotten herself into  
Felicity held back a smile as Thea sighed more loudly than was appropriate.

“Unmarried woman are to wear head coverings outside of their rooms”  
“Is that all?” Laurel snarled with pressed lips and folded arms  
“Yes” Agatha replied, the bitterness lost on her

“Thank you” Felicity smiled and Agatha responded with a thankful smile of her own.

* * *

  
The afternoon sun was high in the weathered sky as Felicity and Thea were in the throws of a game of chess a stone’s throw from the convent’s Infirmary.

“Did you know the man?” Felicity asked as her hand hovered over the pawn, her eyes raised slightly to watch Thea’s response  
She watched the young girl pull her expression inward anxiously and shift slightly in the chair  
“We shouldn’t speak about it” she replied wearily, her voice tipped in fear  
“You are afraid Thea?” Felicity asked, concerning echoed in her expression  
“Someone wants to kill my father, I know it”  
“But why? Your father is harmless old man is he not? I myself have never seen him in all my time spent at Verdant”  
“Please” Thea pleaded “I can’t say”  
Her eyes darted across the empty courtyard, searching for faces amongst the buildings perhaps.

“I’m sorry Thea, it is not for me to ask such questions of you as though we were confidants” Felicity replied as she laid her fingers back on the chess piece, graced Thea with a soft smile and played her move

“Confidants are they like friends?” Thea asked, her hands folded across her lap  
“Yes, I suppose they are”  
“What does it mean to be friends?”  
Felicity could sense the naivety in Thea’s words. Her family had kept her from so much bad, but in the process they had hidden her from so much good.

“A friend is someone who you respect and cherish. You find joy in their company and you are able to speak with them about things you cannot with other people”  
“Are we not friends?”  
“Thea, I do so enjoy your company and that is all that should matter”

Thea considered the intricacies of Felicity’s answer. The trappings of it were not lost on her.

“Oliver is a Knight with the Templar Order, my father is an Elder amongst them. There are those that seek to hurt us because of this, they are assassins, who cause no good but want only for blood. The man last night was killed by one” Thea spoke with a venom that had been taught since infancy

“Your brother tells you this?” Felicity asked  
“No, but the mark cut into his skin, that is the Templar’s seal” Thea spoke as she leaned forward her elbow knocking the Knight absently, but symbolically, from the board  
“Why now, why your brother?” Felicity asked, unwilling to let the girl’s lapse in better judgement go to waste  
“I do not know, but Roy says there was a ring, an assassins ring, he is sure of it, that my brother had him hold for a time and wait for someone who never came. Perhaps they want the ring back” she spoke in a hushed tone

Felicity masked her surprise as intrigue at best. The idea that Oliver held an Assassin’s ring was not what she had expected. Not all had them, only those who had mentored, those of the higher rank within the Brotherhood. Felicity did not possess one, nor was she ever likely to.

“Where is this ring now?” she asked, tiptoeing around the desire for an answer  
“Roy says Oliver has it, I did not ask where. You must not tell anyone though, Roy was sworn to secrecy and I have not breathed a word of it to anyone but you”

Felicity nodded as she bent down to collect the Knight from the ground below them.  
“You have my word Thea, I will speak of it to no one. We are after all friends” she smiled as she placed the symbolic piece back on the table.

Thea responded with a wide smile, oblivious to the importance of the information she had just given.

* * *

  
It had been a few days of quiet idleness within the convent without word from Oliver. Laurel had taken her leave to a nearby castle where her father was lodging. Thea knew more than she offered to Felicity, but Felicity was in no mind to dig for information she cared little about.

The time without word was both worrying and infuriating and she felt suffocated within the Abbey as silent eyes she did not trust watched her. No doubt Moira had already given them an idea on which they hung weighted stares and taunt lips. Their scorn meant little to Felicity, she had never cared for a code that was bought with donations and seeped in hypocrisy.

She sunk deeper into the copper tub, the lukewarm water lapping up the sides as she pressed the heated cloth into her face and curved her toes over the lip of the tub.

“You need to stop interrupting my bathing” Felicity breathed through the heavy cotton over her face  
“This place doesn’t have chamber maids, I thought you might need some help” Sara smiled as she stood poised at the edge of the bath.

Felicity floated through the water as Sara tiptoed around the back, dragging her fingers though the clouded water.

“It does not smell as sweet as the other bath” Sara noted as she dipped the wash cloth into the water and lightly traced it across Felicity’s shoulders, spilling a cascade of water down her back.

“You can’t be taken by surprise can you Felicity?” Sara spoke quietly, her voice resonating through the empty room  
“No and yet you try” Felicity answered with a matched softness  
“I can’t help myself, I’m drawn to you”  
“I have done nothing to draw you”

Sara blew the wisps of fine hair from Felicity’s neck as she spilled more water down her porcelain back.  
“I was meant for a place like this” Sara spoke, cords of sadness running through her voice

Felicity knew it was not unusual for a family with more than one daughter to send one into a life of servitude within a nunnery. Dowries were high and most would be spent ensuring a marriage of nobility. It wouldn’t surprise Felicity if whatever wealth Sara’s family had was all set aside to marry Laurel to Oliver, an agreement which Oliver was clearly refusing.

“I would rather die than suffer in a stale place such as this. It steals colour from your soul” Sara jested her breath melting into Felicity’s damp skin  
“I imagine those woollen habits they wear would be quite itchy” Felicity theorised with a pouted smile

“My sister detests you” Sara quipped as she lay her hands on Felicity’s shoulders and eased her body back against the rim of the tub  
“And you?” Felicity asked as she tipped her head back to catch the reply in Sara’s eyes  
“I should” she lamented  
“Because of Laurel?”  
“Because I am jealous and I’m told that is a most grievous sin”

Felicity’s chin sunk into her shoulder as she twisted her body in the water to meet with the sad stare of Sara’s eyes, they looked to Felicity like they carried the world within them.  
“You have no reason to be jealous of me”  
“Not of you”

Sara smoothed her hand up Felicity’s neck and tucked a fallen piece of hair back up into the knotted bun at her crown.  
“Oliver Queen is not the only one who is taken by your beauty” Sara whispered, her lips grazing against Felicity’s lobe before she gently kissed the silk skin just behind Felicity’s ear

“Forgive me” she breathed as she stood, wiped a fallen tear from her face and hurried from the room.

Felicity let the words linger between her ears and echo in the sudden silence of the room. She had neither planned nor wished this, an unrequited love was a dangerous unknown.

 

 

* * *

 

**[10 November 1150]**

Nine nights had come and gone without Oliver coming to the countryside and Felicity grew anxious at the distance. She needed to return to Verdant, to seek out the ring that Oliver held. If Roy was right and it held the insignia of an Assassin it opened up so many more questions.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a heavy rapt on her bedroom door. The night was well along, the fires had been dampened down and Felicity was dressed in veiled night clothes that did little to cover her body.

She slipped on a heavy brocade cloak as she padded closer to the door her footsteps purposefully quiet. A second knock came, hastier than the first.  
“Who’s there?” she asked with her hand pressed to the door  
“Oliver” came the breathy reply, as though he had run some distance to be at her door.

Felicity pulled back the heavy door, the creak of it echoing down the silent hall.  
“The hour is late my Lord and no men are to be within the gates” she smiled as she stood poised against the door  
“I’m aware which is why I’m hoping you let me in before they find me here and I’m sworn to do months of penance”  
Felicity stepped away from the door and walked across the room to the fireplace, her cloak sweeping along the wooden floorboards as she moved, rightly expecting Oliver to follow. She held the poker in her hand and toyed mindlessly with the charred logs as she listened to the clunk of the door closing and the shuffle of his feet across the floor.

“I missed you” he whispered as he reached her back and buried his face into her luxurious locks

Felicity turned languidly with a blushed smile set on her naked lips. She would not admit it, but the gravel in his voice when he longed to be near her had become a sound she had grown fond of.

With nothing more than a smile across her lips she stepped from him and walked the small distance to the rustic simple bed, made up with down feather blankets. They buckled slightly under her as she perched on the edge of the bed, her face warmed by the nearby fire.

“I was worried you had grown tired of me” Felicity confided as she hugged the cloak tight around her frame to cover her thin night dress, just the rise of her breasts were seen under it  
“I could never, it would be like tiring of seeing the sunrise” Oliver spoke as he knelt between her legs his fingers folding through her lose hair that skimmed her waist

“And when can I return to Verdant?” she asked before she tugged her lip inward as she enveloped his hands between her palms “return to you my Lord?”  
Felicity watched him swallow heavily and the threads of his neck constrict, he had not dampened his desire during their separation

“Soon” he avowed, his eyes blown wide  
She shrugged the cloak from her shoulders as the flames nearby licked mesmeric orange hues across her skin, basking her body in glows and shadows.

The wisp of her night dress fell with the cloak from her shoulder, exposing where he had once hungrily left his mark.  
“My mark has faded my Lord” she teased with a hushed tone  
Oliver brushed his calloused thumb over the faded pink hue of her mark, enjoying the way flicks of orange danced around it

“Will you mark me again my Lord, I wish to have you near” she breathed as she leaned back, her body propped on her elbows

He mirrored her stance as he stood and threaded his arms between hers as their foreheads pressed together. He breathed deeply and slowly, his breath misting over her skin.  
“Where?” he spoke with a trapped husk

Felicity tugged the hem of her dress up, slowly exposing her calf. Oliver’s eyes sunk into her body and his tongue swiped hungrily across his swollen lip. She pulled it higher, exposing her knee, a little further and her thigh was displayed to him.

She felt his fingers clench into the linen and his chest rise and fall like a thump.  
“Here my Lord, if it pleases you” she whispered against the scruff of his jaw, trapping a smiled kiss there as her finger swept just above the inside of her knee

Oliver sunk back down onto his knees. He could smell her scent pulsing from her skin as he leaned in and trickled feathered kisses up the inside of her knee. He breathed her in deeply, notes of her arousal caught under the hem of her dress that skimmed his cheek.

His eyes lulled closed as he imagined her taste on his lips, his tongue saturated in her juices, her body wracked and panting underneath him. His cock throbbed at the pictures his mind drew and the fantasies he grew there.

His lips finally found her fingers and the spot she had given to him. She drew back her fingers and scratched them lightly up his cheek until they found tenement threaded into his hair. Felicity tugged his damp hair, wet from the showers he rode through to be at her door. He moaned against her leg before his teeth nipped at her.

He was hurried and desperate, his mouth suckling her smooth skin, pulling it into and trapping it there. Her soft mewls filled the eerie silence in the room, the cracking whips of the wood burning the only other sound. His tongue licked and caressed her skin as his hands swept up her body, one kneading into her thigh and the other gripped around her waist.

He listened to Felicity’s coos as the blankets concaved around her and he hungrily tasted her. The desires grew thick through his mind and his hands fisted into her with wanton expectation. Felicity jostled at the feel of his hands crushing into her.

Oliver, realising his actions, released her immediately and skidded a few feet back across the dull wooden floor, his feet knocking over a stool.  
“Forgive me” he panted, his heart thumping through his chest and his breath desperate to be stilled  
“Aside from the place where we are, you need no forgiveness” Felicity hushed as her eyes lingered on the heavy red mark that stained her thigh

She stood up from the bed, letting her dress fall like a heavy stage curtain over her legs before she walked the distance between them.

He knelt, frozen, as she smoothed a hand to his face and drew him in close to her body. He rested his head against her naval and relished the scent of her as she combed her fingers across his scalp.  
“You love with passion” she whispered, aware that their voices may carry despite the stone walls “with hunger” she added with a smile  
“And this does not frighten you?”  
“No my Lord. I do not wish for limp hands and lukewarm kisses. A man should make love as though it might be his last indulgence”

Oliver’s eyes wandered up her body as his hands caressed her ass.  
“Two days Felicity” he spoke as he licked his lips in anticipation “you’ll return in two days’ time”  
“Save your fire for then my Lord” she whispered, kissing the words into the top of his head “now go before they find you here and we’re both set year long penance”

 

* * *

 

**[12 November 1150]**

Two days later, true to his word, they farewelled the Convent and started the arduous journey back to Starling, back to Verdant.

Nearing the outskirts of the town as dusk was beginning to fall, Felicity’s thoughts wondered back to the message that had been left in blood as Thea, worn from the journey, lay her head on Felicity’s shoulder.

Oliver’s lineage through the Templars was not a particular well kept secret. He had fought numerous crusades under their banner and his father’s name was echoed through the halls near and far as one of the Masters of such Order. They did not value secrecy the same as the Brotherhood did.

Yet Oliver did not seem to relish this association, the words (which would carry a level of power along with them) had never been uttered from his mouth. It was as though he was trying to unravel himself from their deeds. Only the innocent blood on his hands was fresh – it was her mother’s.

Someone had sent Oliver a message, if she did not think better of it she would have assumed the precise cuts to the man’s body was made with a blade not unlike the one retracted in her gauntlet. Another Assassin here seemed unreasonable, she would have noticed them. The idea that another Assassin might leave such a harbinger was even more so. It was not the way.

Her mind turned to Cooper, as it had in the many days before, and without letting the words seep from her lips she recited the creed as a shroud over him. Her eyes travelled out the window as the carriage past a flag waving in the high breeze and a tall wooden spike driven into the ground next to it. There was no mistaking what sat atop it.

Her breath hitched at the matted dark hair, it couldn’t be... she would not even let her mind say the word.

“Stop the carriage” she called as she banged her palm against the front of it  
“Felicity, what wrong?” Thea asked as she was startled awake  
“Stop the carriage” Felicity repeated, her voice spread thin.  
_It could not be him, not her brother._

She opened the door as the carriage began to slow.  
“Felicity, wait” Thea begged, her request ignored as Felicity lept from the rolling carriage and ran the distance to the rotting head.

She struggled to breathe as she reached it and forced her eyes upward. The olive complexion was greyed and sunken. Flesh had been pecked away and the cheeks of a man well above Felicity’s age were twisted in the pain of death.

It was a sight most brutal, but it was not Cooper.

“Felicity” Thea panted as she raced up to where Felicity stood  
Before Felicity could shield the innocent girl from the ravaged face of death Thea screamed and fell against Felicity’s shoulder.

“Come Thea” Felicity comforted as she moved the sobbing girl away  
It smelt like death.  
It looked like a warning.

“Did my brother do this?” Thea asked, hesitation thick in her voice  
Felicity could offer her no answer, for one would be a lie and the other would be a truth she did not need to know. 

* * *

 

Despite returning to Verdant hours before, Oliver had not come to meet the returning women as Felicity had expected him too. The young chamber maid that had helped Felicity unpack had mentioned that they had barely seen his Lordship, Oliver, for the past twelve days, that he had spent much of his time holed away in his chambers, eating meals there, passing orders from there and that people had begun to worry about him.

“Perhaps he will perk up now you’re here” she had said with a smile on her youthful face  
Felicity had offered nothing more than a kindly smile in response. There was something to be said for knowing the truth but not saying it out loud.

No one within Verdant’s gates (or perhaps even those outside it) were naïve to the reasons Felicity was staying at the Castle. Whose guest she was, was no secret, but it was, and would remain, unspoken.

It was nearing 11 o’clock when Felicity had decided to turn in for the night. She had hoped that Oliver would come to her and she felt a sense of disappointment that he had not.

Thea had been almost inconsolable, although she held her tongue when her mother asked her why. There was no doubt in Felicity’s mind that she would garner blame for this, and perhaps rightly so, but she had thought only one step ahead when she ran from that carriage – a fact that was not lost on her.

She had seen Cooper in passing within the castle gates. For reasons Felicity struggled to understand, Oliver had brought in some of the mercenaries to fill the barracks in the Gloriette. She had no opportunity to enquire how Oliver chose these men, but she was unsurprised to see Cooper as part of them.

She was the only person that took the tenant of _Hide in plain sight_ more seriously than he did. His ability to blend with his surroundings was almost unmatched and something he credited her for. Yet, here they were, free from mask and cowl, exposed.

 _It will all be worth it_ she told herself, hopeful it would prove true.

**~*~*~*~**

Slade sat in his small room near the barracks with only a small candle to light his task. His face was twisted, his eye was darkened and his breath was laboured.

He wrote simply  
_The man you sent has shed blood. Give me his name that I may root him out._

He sealed the envelope with the red wax and slipped it into his pocket. The message had been noted.

**~*~*~*~**

Felicity tugged the cloak firmly around her body, securing it tightly with a plaited belt before she crossed towards the door as a knock broke through the silence of her thoughts.

She did not think it Oliver, the knock much more reserved than the other times she had found him at her door.  
“Who is it?” she asked through the door  
“His Lordship has asked for your company” came a quiet response

Felicity opened the door, holding the hairpin she had taken from her dresser as a precaution. She was met with the timid face of Roy Harper, Oliver’s understudy.  
“He apologises for the lateness of the request, but he asked that I take you to see him”  
Felicity looked the young boy up and down. He was a young, perhaps just shy of his sixteenth birthday, but death had touched him, she could see it in his eyes.

“One moment and I will accompany you” Felicity replied as she left the door ajar and threaded the hairpin through her locks, twisting and securing it at the nape of her neck.

When she opened the door once again she noted a single guard had been posted outside her door, an order Oliver must have given after she retired for the night.

“Please stay with me miss, the soldiers can be a bit rowdy and have likely had more drink than they ought” Roy remarked as he walked her towards the Great Hall  
“Why did his Lordship bring them into the gates?”  
“It wasn’t his idea, the three of them fought for days on it”  
“The three of them?”

Roy considered his response as they rounded down the staircase and around the back of it towards the bridge entrance.

“I have probably already spoken out of turn too much”  
Felicity smiled sweetly, it appeared Roy was only loose-lipped when it came to Thea.

“This way miss” he continued as they stepped out onto the drawbridge that separated the Gloriette from the Main Castle.  
The wind swept up the fine hair around Felicity’s face as the water underneath broke in rough waves against the foundations of the Castle. The air was cold and heavy as though a storm was heading their way.

She heard the revelry from the barracks as they crossed into the older castle. Its structure was cramped, it’s corridors narrow and the windows on this floor were slits cut into the stone and made without glass. She followed Roy up a stairwell that was lit with hanging lamps which swung in the breeze that stormed through the building.

His chambers were on the second storey and the only door down the narrow corridor. You did not simply walk past his room, you went there with purpose or not at all.

Roy knocked heavily on the door, much more so than he had on Felicity’s and the change in demeanour made her smile as he stiffened his back and wiped any remnants of a smile from his face.

Oliver opened the door almost immediately, he had been expecting them. His eyes looked to Roy and he spoke gruffly “Stay out here”

Oliver’s expression softened just a fraction when his eyes travelled across to Felicity and without words he gestured her inside.

Felicity slipped past Roy with a thankful smile before she stepped into Oliver’s chambers and he closed the door with a thud behind her.

Felicity let her eyes wander quickly through the room as she was unsure when she would have another opportunity to be in it. The room did not seem larger than her own, nor did it seem more ornate. If anything the furniture looked more weathered, more worn.

The fire was roaring, warming the room to a point where the cold blush that had blemished Felicity’s cheeks melted away. The décor was heavy, dark woods, the bed, larger than her own, was raised up on a platform and showcased rich deep red wood posts carved with the Queen family crest, a symbol of strength and power. The curtains that were drawn back were gold-trimmed red brocade, a symbol of wealth.

She felt his presence behind her, his breath against her exposed neck, but he came no further and did not touch a hand to her skin as she had expected him to.

“You asked me here for a purpose my Lord” she spoke as she sat on the embroidered chaise that sat at the foot of the bed, her toes pointed towards the fire to the side of it.  
“I am glad to see you back” he sighed, his face troubled as he walked away from her towards a dimly lit corner of the room.

There was a door to the far end of the same wall and Felicity was curious as to what lay behind it.

“You could have come to my chambers to say that” Felicity smiled, hugging her arms around her belted waist  
Oliver asking her to his chambers was taboo in itself, for it to be happening at this late hour was nothing short of scandalous.

“Why did you leave the carriage?” he asked, unwilling to set his eyes on her as he spoke  
The reasons for the invitation and his lack of physical affection suddenly became clear, she was here to explain herself in walls that offered more privacy that that of her own.

“I wanted to see it for myself” she answered, unwilling to offer him perhaps what he sought – pleadings of a distraught mistake  
“That was not for you to see” he grimaced, his eyes growing darker as the flames from the fire reflected within them “not for my sister to see”

For that, Felicity was sorry.  
“I never meant for her to follow me” Felicity replied, while she did not agree with the shroud they buried Thea under, no child needed to see that  
“But she did” he growled, his – at himself or at her, she was unsure  
“And for that I am sorry my Lord”

He nodded slowly, his legs carrying his body in short circles, his feet scuffed against the wooden floor.  
“She thinks me a monster now”  
“She will forgive you, you are her brother”  
“Any what of you, will you forgive me?” he growled, much harsher than he had intended it  
The anguish was twisted in his face. It had been his idea of that Felicity was sure, but she was also certain that he was not proud of it.

She stood and walked slowly towards where he stood, now propped up against the mantle of the fireplace, his feet kicked against the hearth.

“Do you ask for my forgiveness or do you wish for my understanding?” she asked as she stopped a few feet away from him  
“Are they not the same?”  
“No, for one you have regret, for the other you offer none”  
“I have no regret. There was no choice to be made”  
“Then you do not seek my forgiveness, you seek my understanding”  
“And will you give me that?”  
“No” she whispered, almost sadly

“You ask me once what I thought of war. I told you I knew it was a necessity” she spoke as she watched his body tense and the threads of his neck stiffen “but that display was not war Oliver, that was destruction”

“We found the blade amongst his things and he confessed” Oliver retorted as his hand scoured through his hair  
“Confessed? Do not lie to me and say you did not torture him” she bit back as she lowered her head to catch the darkness swimming through his eyes  
“No more than deserved” he retorted as he raised his head, the rasp in his voice like gravel to her ears  
“What man would not confess to stop the pain?” she asked, her voice tipped with anger

While the Creed understood the three ironies they swore themselves to, Felicity’s blade had never taken the life of an innocent; a fact she was sure Oliver could not swear to.

Oliver pushed off from the mantle and walked the edge of the room. What Felicity said was true and he could not hide it from her inquisitive nature or soul-seeking eyes.

“You gave him no trial, no means to prove himself otherwise. You wanted to stick a head to a pike because you wanted people to fear you” she continued as she followed along behind him

“YES” he shouted as his hand slammed down onto the table by the window “I need them to fear me” his voice was gritted and rough  
“Why?” she asked, her eyes never relenting from him  
“Because I deserve to be feared” he clenched his jaw as he looked over his shoulder at her  
  
“Why?” she continued, refusing him any quarter  
“Because” he dropped his chin to his chest and shook it gently as his nails embedded themselves in the table “I have killed” he breathed, ashamed

“War will always end in death” Felicity reminded as she took two steps towards him  
“Peace ends in death too” he lamented, his head still dropped “these hands have killed in the name of a legacy that I do not want”

“So then reject it” she urged as she lay a hand on his shoulder without caution  
“I can’t” he grimaced, tensing at her touch his heart plagued in the thought that he did not deserve it  
“You won’t” she spat

“You speak like you understand” he roared, perhaps he was trying to push her away, to make her leave so he didn’t have to lose her slowly  
“And you refuse to help me to” she bit back

Oliver pulled away from her, his face a twist of emotions and his body wracked with contradictions. He had already told her too much, given her too much of his soul. If they knew, if they discovered the truth, he knew they would take her from him. They would destroy her beauty to destroy her stake in his heart.

“You need to go” he swallowed down everything else he wanted to say  
Felicity stepped back, the disappointment not hidden from him.

Without a second word Oliver strode with heavy feet over to the door and pulled it open, startling Roy who had been stood nearby.

“Please take Felicity back to her chambers” Oliver ordered

“I do not need to be babysat” Felicity spat, letting her temper get the better of her  
“You will have Roy or John accompany you anytime you walk the halls at night and a guard will watch your room each night” Oliver insisted, no hint of choice in his words  
“Did you not catch the man, sever his throat, burn his corpse and place his head on the city wall?” Felicity asked, her words hauntingly accurate “of what then are you afraid of?”

She was pushing him, she knew it, but no war was won without a reason to fight. She needed more from him. She needed the truth, what lives had his hands taken?

“You will not leave your room unaccompanied” he growled, his barely regained calm tipping towards the edge as he gestured Roy into the room

Felicity walked the distance between them, her arms folded around her waist and her blue eyes deepened to the colour of rough open sea.  
“So I am to be a prisoner?” she asked as she stood barely a foot from him, her eyes scouring his  
“If that is what keeps you safe, then yes” he snapped back, his hands aching with a desire to embrace her but knowing he ought not

“You can’t even tell me what you are keeping me safe _from_ ”  
“I will not lose you, I will not have you taken from me” he roared, his whole body rocked with raw emotion

She had pushed him, taken his core and shaken it.  
“Who?” she pleaded, desperate to get answers from him in a state that he might offer them  
“Take her” Oliver ordered, his words directed at Roy

“From who my Lord?” Felicity begged for answers, afraid this may be her last chance  
“Take her now”

Roy’s arms wrapped strongly but gently around her waist. She could have fought him, but it would have done no good. Oliver was shut off from her. She would get nothing more from him.

She felt the weight of her task bury her and her body caved.  
She had failed her mother.  
The only one she truly loved.

**~*~*~*~**

Oliver watched her leave with a heavy heart and bitter taste. She had seen him as a monster – at his worst – and she had challenged him on it.

“You look agitated my Lord, does she continues to deny you?” Slade asked from the door Oliver had neglected to close.  
Slade had heard almost every word that had been batted between them once Oliver opened the door. It was an opportunity he would not let pass. The girl was bothersome to him, no woman had ever bested him the way she had and he would not easily forget it.

Oliver stayed rigid, his whole body tipped with a burning hatred, for himself – for his legacy, as he stared out into the blackness of the night, his arms crossed over his chest and his brow heavy with anguish. He had lost her. _Perhaps_ , he lamented, _that was for the better._

“Have her brought back here” Slade smirked with cruel intent “I will hold her down while you take what is rightfully yours. Then give her to the men, let them rejoice in your kindness”  
A snarled laugh seeped from his lips.

Oliver’s anger erupted like a volcano pressed to its limit, his hand drew the gold ornate dagger from his sheath before he rammed Slade backwards, pinning him against the wall with the edge of his blade firmed against his jugular, hard enough to draw a slither of blood.

“Let it be known that anyone who even thinks of laying their breath on her will suffer immeasurable pain at my own hands. The fate of whomever sleeps either side of that man will be the same” Oliver hissed, his eyes dark and thick with rage “I will watch them hung from a ladder, their entrails spread out before them while they die in the most painful of ways. They will be shown no mercy”

He pressed the blade deeper causing Slade to fight for every breath.  
“Have this told to every man within these walls and outside it. No hand, no breath, no gaze. She is _mine_ ”  
His chest rose and fell desperately as the words sunk in and he could not deny the truth of them.  
“Make it known” he growled as he stepped back, releasing the knife  
“Of course my Lord” Slade rasped as he wiped the blood from his superficial wound

* * *

  
Slade raged around his small room, tipping the furniture as his blood boiled deep within him. He would not be bested by a woman. He would see her punished, even if it wasn’t to be at his own aching hands.

He caught the scruff of a soldier who was solid in stature and heavy in size as he walked past the room. He wore the face of a man who had consumed enough alcohol to be pliable to the most terrible of ideas given the right motivation.

“What is it you wish for this night?” Slade asked as he met the man eye for eye  
“I’m here to fight, but he sees us stay around here like pets”  
“Men like us need glory”  
The man raised his mug, sloshing the alcohol within it.  
“Men like us need the victory”  
Another cheered agreement.  
“Men like us need the spoils of victory” his lips twisted up into a sinister smile “the warm body of a woman underneath us”  
“I sleep in a room full of men” the drunk man laughed, a vicious bite threaded within “I would take the spoils of a woman any day”

“There is one here, within the Castle, she has no title to her name”  
The drunkard’s eyes darkened.  
“The man outside her room can be bought with this” he dropped a small bag of coins into the man’s hand “the party is so loud here no one will hear her”

The man weighed the money in his palm.  
“And what do you want from this?” he grunted, the stench of alcohol permeating every word  
“I like to see my men rewarded. Bind her, gag her, use her in whatever way you see fit and when she is broken and you have taken all you need take your blade and slit her throat. Bring me her ear when you are done and I will see you have safe passage from this place and more gold to line your pockets”

The man needed no more inciting.

**~*~*~*~**

Cooper watched from a distance. The words were unheard to him, but there seemed no reason for money to exchange hands between Slade and a simple infantry man. It was not something Cooper could easily explain, but in his time spent watching, he had not seen a clandestine meeting such as this before.

Slipping into the shadows he decided to follow him. He watched the hulk of a man walk with a mission through the crowd of peers, his eyes affixed in a destination. Cooper readied himself to follow and as the man headed towards the drawbridge he knew his suspicions had been right, they had been all commanded not to cross the bridge after sunset.

He sunk into the shadows and moved to follow when the hand of another drunk soldier caught his arm and pressed a mug of beer into Cooper’s chest.

In the seconds it took Cooper to push the man aside and lay the drink on a table, the Goliath had disappeared.

**~*~*~*~**

Oliver felt the anguish in every step he took. He had deliberately pushed her away, afraid to look upon her anymore. Looking at her made him want for more, made him desperate to try anything.

But his last attempt may have spelled the end to a man who had only ever tried to help.

Only, he couldn’t live with not telling her something more….

He yanked his door open hoping to find her still stood there with Roy, but he found only the young squire stood alone.

“Where is she?” Oliver asked, desperation leached through his voice  
“I took her back to her room my Lord, she was upset but she went in regardless. Shall I fetch her back?”  
“No” Oliver replied, he would go to her himself, beg for her to see him if that’s what it took

But his feet would not move from their spot, afraid she would not offer him what he sought.

**~*~*~*~**

Felicity paced her room, stilted tears burned tracks down her cheeks as she fought to regain her composure. She wasn’t sure what she had hoped to gain from pushing Oliver, he would never admit to the deaths that stained his hands and it had been foolish to think he would

Her mind was a fog and her heart bled for a cause she had risked so much for. Perhaps even a thread of her sadness was for Oliver – she caught herself thinking it and took a sharp breath inwards, she couldn’t, she wouldn’t…she didn’t…

A rapt on the door tugged her attention.  
“Who is it?” she asked as she pushed back tears and swallowed down the last few thoughts  
“I have a message from the Lord” a huffed, slightly slurred voice replied  
It was not Roy, she was certain of it, but perhaps he had sent another to deliver her a message.

She opened the door slowly as her hand walked up her neck to touch the tip of the sharpened hairpin that was still threaded through her hair.

Before a word could leave her mouth a man much larger than her came barrelling in the room, the sheer force of him knocking Felicity to the ground before he kicked the door closed with a heavy boot. She scrambled to her feet but his arm snaked around her throat, stealing her voice as the other crushed in around her waist.

He threw her onto the bed like she was nothing more than a ragdoll and she struggled to gain her breath before his hand pressed her face into the linen. Her nails clawed at his arm as she tried in vain to twist her body underneath him.

He grabbed a fistful of hair at her scalp and pulled her up, air finally filling her lungs. He reached for an apple that sat untouched in a brass bowl beside the bed.  
“Scream for me just a little” he whispered with menace as he held the apple near her mouth, its purpose to be a makeshift gag.

She pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes at him as he slammed the side of her face into the mattress.  
No man had made her scream, he would be no exception. She reached her hand backwards, grimacing at the pain it cause as she stretched her arm beyond its normal scope until her fingers found the tip of the brushed ivory hairpin.

He kicked her legs apart and leaned close to her steeled face.  
“I’m going to enjoy this more than you”  
“I don’t think so” she spat as she stole every ounce of strength she possessed to twist her battered body to release her arm.

Felicity plunged the hairpin into his throat spraying arterial blood across a radius. She pushed the pin deeper until her fisted hand, drenched in his blood, pressed into the wound.

She felt the drips of blood down her face and saw the sharp staining against her white dress. She watched the shock of his eyes as his whole body stiffened then went limp.

She tore the hairpin from his throat and dropped it to her feet as she watched him lumber backwards, clasping at the wound gushing blood.

He fell backwards when his legs could no longer hold him and his voice was nothing more than muttered gurgles. Felicity knelt beside him, smudging the back of her hand through the blood on her face before she leant down to his ear and whispered with a bitter tongue  
“Requiescat in pace”  
_Rest in peace._

The meaning was not lost on him, his eyes widened and with one of his last remaining breaths he came to know her secret.  
“Assassin” he wheezed, blood pooling in the floor underneath him

Felicity stood and watched the life leave him, the image of her face the one that would be burned on his soul for all eternity.

Her eyes walked around the room, the tipped nightstand and the torn bed curtain stained with blood splatter. It settled in the pores of her skin pooled on the floor, soaking into the grain of the wood.

She could not remove the stain of him from within the room and, without suspicion she could ill afford, no one would believe she alone had fought the man off.

She saw no way out of this.

Then, a knock.


	8. Focus

__

_Focus._  
_The eyes of an eagle guide you_  
_The fates of the dark embrace you_  
_You are what they fear_  
_You are shadow_  
_You are death_  
_Focus._

Like an eagle strikes from the skies, so too does an assassin.  
The predator.  
The destroyer.

 

  
A knock.  
It was faint.  
Perhaps she had misheard it.

Her eyes roved about the room, her head consumed with trying to piece together a plan that would not see the time spent here spent in vain.

Another knock.  
Her eyes slowly closed, focusing her senses and slowing the rhythm of her heartbeat right down. This would not be how her revenge played out.

“Who is it?” she asked once her face was pressed to the door listening for every sound made on the other side of it  
“An eagle sees that which is hidden” came the whispered words, spoken in a hush with the surety that her ear would be close by  
_Cooper_.

She felt the wave of relief crash on top of her, letting out a single tear the only expression she gave it.

Felicity unlocked the door just enough for her eyes to scour the dim corridor. Cooper slipped into her chambers, sunk into the shadow of the wall before she closed the door as quietly as she could.

He saw her first, the blood marred her skin and matted the tips of her golden hair. His eyes widened and he drew his blade without word.  
“There is no need” she said as she shook her head and placed her palm against the blade

“What happened?” he pleaded for answers, his voice trembled but gruff before his eyes settled on the corpse that lay not far from the bed.  
“I was left without a choice” she spoke solemnly, irritated that a move she had not predicted had forced her hand

“Did he hurt you?” Cooper asked as his hand searched her face for any sign that the blood staining it was her own  
“He was not given the chance” she stated without a wisp of emotion.  
The pawn who lay in his own blood had not been the first to try and take what was not his and Felicity was not under the illusion that he would be the last.

She knew her looks and demeanour were a weapon, the type that could confuse, disarm and lull; but they were also something more, something people wished to consume, own and destroy. She was not naïve to it.

“Pack only what you need, we’ll escape off the drawbridge to the Gloriette, the lake will be deep enough if we jump free of the foundations” Cooper instructed as he tore open the doors of her closet “the courtyard guard is too heavy to leave any other way, dress warm the water will bite”

“I’m not leaving” Felicity replied, her stance unmoved  
“I know that I am supposed to be here if I want the truth” she continued, watching the confused expression grow over his face before his eyes darkened into a wave of frustration  
“Felicity, it’s over, done” he chided  
“No” Felicity quipped “Oliver knows more, I can feel it in my bones. With every sense I possess I know that I am supposed to be here”

“How do you mean to explain this to him? No one will settle for less. You may have Oliver fawning for you but the others are no fools”  
“I will offer them a hero” she spoke softly as she breezed across the room to where he stood, poised against the door of her closet, his brow heavy and his knuckles fisted white against the wood.

Felicity let out a soft exhale, blowing it steadily from her lips and her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks. The moment she looked up at him he knew what she was asking of him.

“My brother I know I have already asked so much from you” she cried, the anguish finally released through her voice, her strong façade showing its cracks

Cooper’s hands folded around her face, his thumb swiping a tear from her cheek as it blended with the blood splattered there.  
“Forgive me that I ask yet more” she breathed with a slight quiver of her lip, he would be so far the only man to ever witness it

His eyes grew tired and his heart more weary. There were unspoken things between them, but they both knew where this path would inevitably lead. Out of the shadows did not mean light, for they both knew it meant their death.

“What would you have me do?” he asked, his hands still cupping the most beautiful face he had ever seen. He knew that no matter what she asked, he would do.  
And when she called for it, there would be no hesitation.  
His death would come; the only surprise would be by whose hand fate would have it done.

Her hands folded around his wrists and slowly she eased her face from between his palms and sunk her hand into his own, talking as she walked him to where the man lay dead.

“You were passing by and saw the door unguarded, when you go closer the door was cracked open, you heard commotion, came in and saw him on top of me. You fought” she spoke as she took the short dagger from his chest sheath, she bent down, balancing the tip of the blade above the dead man's neck like a spinning top  
“He lost” she breathed as her fingers laced through each other, gripping around the handle of Cooper’s bade before she drove it down into the same wound she had made, severing the flesh around the wound even further, the blade cracking through the bones.

Congealed blood seeped onto the blade, coating the hardened steel thickly before she held it up and let the run off hauntingly drip from it.  
“The fight was short” she spoke calmly as she folded the handle of the blade into his hand and dipped her fingers into the crimson pond at her feet

“He was drunk” she continued, flicking the blood that smothered her fingers onto Cooper’s face, he didn’t flinch. Nor did he move as she tore the sleeve of his shirt and dishevelled his hair.

The two companions stood and Cooper nodded his agreement to what he knew she had to do as she took the blade from the dead man’s waist and held it tightly.

“Forgive me brother” she prayed as he closed his eyes and stiffened his resolve

Felicity swiped the blade across his chest in one fluid motion, scouring his clothes and drawing blood from the superficial wound. His lips silently gasped, a shock intake of air filling his lungs.

She tore the fine silk bed curtain from its track and ripped the sleeve of her night dress before she carefully wiped the hairpin clean and placed it, hidden away, in a drawer.

Felicity stood before Cooper and dropped the dead man’s knife at her feet. Her eyes locked with his as she nodded slowly. There was but one more thing to be done.

“You know what you must do” she said, her eyes never leaving from his lest he think that a break in her commitment  
“I will not” he hushed, his voice threaded with anguish as he knew what she asked of him  
“No one will believe that he did not leave a mark on me”  
“Felicity, please” his voice was shaking, to the point where he almost begged for respite from her  
Her eyes sunk closed for a minute, she asked a lot – she knew that, she could read it clearly in his expression, but what was to be done needed to be done.

She took his hand, smoothing it with both her palms. He was shaking, in all her years she had not seen such a thing.  
“Please brother” she pleaded as she gently brushed the back of his hand against her soft cheek

He raised his hand into the air, his eyes burned with distress, his lips flinched with pain, but he did it. Just as she asked.

His hand came down hard against the side of her face sending a shockwave of pain erupting down her body. She buckled, the force of it jolting her enough to make her footing stumble.

The feeling of it resonated long after his hand fell to his side and he looked at her, broken and regretful.

“Again” she said as she spat out the blood that pooled in her mouth  
“Once is enough” Cooper gritted  
“He must believe this”  
“Once is enough, he will believe you”

She saw the resolution in his eyes, what she had asked had taken its toll, she would ask no more of him in this moment.

“Slade sent him to you, I will get vengeance” Cooper sneered as he readied himself for the spectacle this room would soon become  
“No brother, stay your blade” she cautioned “I believe there is more to be learned from him”

Silent agreements were passed between them before Felicity bowed her head as a sign of lasting gratitude.  
“Thank you” her lips formed over the words

For every sin that Cooper had committed, perhaps he will find penance in those two words.

* * *

  
Felicity screamed.  
It was a scream of a thousand ones she had held in over a lifetime.

As quickly as it pierced through the stone walls and distant songs of drunken men chaos erupted throughout the castle. Oliver was not far from her chambers when he heard it. It reached in through his chest and strangled his heart. A scream that stole his breath.

He didn’t remember running but, with ragged breath and a wet brow her burst through her doorway only seconds before other guards followed him through.

His eyes bounced around the room. Her dress sodden with blood, her palm pressed against her bloodied face, torn fabric and upturned furniture. He drew his sword without hesitation and it found it’s target at the neck of a young man in footman garb.

Cooper dropped his own blade and fell to the floor on his knees with his arms raised above his head, the point of Oliver's blade nicking the thin skin on his neck.

“My Lord, please, not him” Felicity pleaded as her hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword “this man helped me”

Oliver scanned her face, searching her eyes before his own fell onto the body lay partially hidden behind the foot of her bed.

“Hold him” Oliver ordered of nearby men as Cooper slowly raised back onto his feet, his hands still high in surrender  
“Are you alright?” he asked of her, his words sodden with concern  
“Yes my Lord” she whispered, her voice a soft quiver

Oliver took a few steps away from her to press a boot into the dead man's shoulder and stare at an unfamiliar face. He was dead, and, Oliver concluded with darkening eyes, lucky for it.

There was no shadow of doubt in his mind as to what had happened in this room and his anger twisted from simmering to sitting on the precipice of exploding.

He turned on his heels back towards Felicity, shuddering in her torn and stained dress, he would kill this man slowly a thousand times over if the laws of nature allowed it.

A guard walked towards her and Oliver drew his sword upwards again.  
“Do not touch her” he hissed venomously before sheathing his sword once the guard backed away  
He took a soft embroidered cloak from a chaise nearby and closed the gap between them. With a swift swoop he wrapped it around her shoulders and picked her up.

Felicity dropped her head to his chest, he needed a damsel to protect and for this moment she would give it to him. The thud of his heart was a welcomed lull and she found herself nestling her head closer to hear it.

Oliver carried her the distance to his chambers without a word as crowds parted around him. Roy opened the chamber doors with concern locked in his expression.  
“Have Raisa called” Oliver ordered with stoic words  
“John has already gone to bring her my Lord”

Oliver nodded before entering his chambers and kicking the door closed.

He lay her gently on a red velvet chaise with a dark polished wooden trim. Felicity sunk into it, drawing up her knees to her chest.

There was a knock before John entered with the worried older woman in tow.  
“What happened child?” Raisa consoled as looked between Oliver and Felicity  
“Please see that she is changed and taken care of” Oliver instructed, his tone softened towards the older woman “delicately” he added

“She will look after you” he said as he knelt down in front of Felicity  
“My Lord, I am fine” Felicity replied with a light tongue  
Oliver stood and placed a loving and lingered kiss to the crown of her head  
“Forgive me” he whispered before he walked from the room  
“No one goes in this room, do you understand?” he instructed Roy through gritted teeth  
“Yes my Lord” Roy nodded resolutely  
“Kill anyone that tries”

There was no doubt in his tone that he meant it.  
“You have the face of some one seeking blood” John noted with concern

“Who was the man?” Oliver hissed  
“A nobody”  
“Find me who slept either side of his cot, any man he called a friend” Oliver scathed with building rage “find me any who toasted to good cheer with him this night and assemble every man within the walls”  
“Oliver, what do you mean to do?” John hushed, speaking as a friend not an officer  
“Find them” Oliver growled, his blue eyes sunk in dark shadow

He needed blood.

* * *

  
The tepid water infused with ginger root felt cool against Felicity's bruised cheek, hot whips of fingers still felt across it. Raisa was gentle, a kindly hand smoothed under her chin to raise her head. She was dressed in fresh clothes and the blood had been washed as well as it could be from her skin and the tips of her hair.

She pressed with only the pressure needed to let the water seeped into the pores of her face. Her touch was reminiscent to that of a mother. Soft, concerned.

“You know in my language we have many words for woman” Raisa started as she gently tended to a knuckle graze along her cheekbone

Felicity kept her eyes low and unflinching, too many things this night had been taken from her control and it felt as though someone else was forcing chess plays she herself was not ready to.

“Some might use _Hulder_ ” Raise continued, unfazed by Felicity’s lack of engagement “folklore tells a tale of a dangerous woman, alluring, beautiful but wild”  
Felicity said nothing but knew the fable the older woman spoke of.

“Although I do not think you possess the tail of a cow”  
The full bodied laugh Raisa expelled was more than Felicity expected and more telling than it ought be. Raisa held a perfunctory title of nursemaid, although it was clear Oliver no longer needed one, she was kept around not to perform tasks or duties, but because Oliver trusted her, cared about her, perhaps even allowed her to speak more openly than any other.

She was the mother that her Ladyship Queen could not be.  
“He is taken with you” her tone shifted, still kindly but with a thread of concern “perhaps you are more _Heks_ ”

“You think me a witch?” Felicity asked, her eyes tipping to the side to watch the older woman's lips turn up into a smile  
“Ahh, I was right” she nodded to herself, she had carefully considered that Felicity knew much more than most would give her credit for.

The moment she had watched the young woman weave her way through the complications of a family she knew all too well, Raisa had decided too many underestimated the blonde beauty and she was much more than a pretty face and alluring figure.

“I think you strong” Raisa commended, studying the face of a woman who didn’t flinch where many would have fainted.  
“Better it be that a woman is weak?”

She shook her head fiercely and Felicity saw a well trained spark.  
“We all know wars may be fought by men, but they are won by women, strong women”

Her eyes narrowed, darkened with concern. Felicity knew they were eyes that saw and understood much more than they would ever let on.

“But they say true strength at its heart comes from only two things, love or hate” she paused, eyes tracking Felicity

Felicity felt the heat of her eyes, they were not scornful or narrowed, but concerned. They left the words open and the unasked question unanswered.

_Where did Felicity's strength originate from?_

“You will wear marks for a week, perhaps a little longer, but you will heal beautifully” Raisa smiled as she dropped the wash cloth into the bowl and stood up from the stool.

“Do you know where his Lordship might be?” Felicity asked as she touched an idle finger to her bruised cheek  
“I have an idea where you might find him” Raisa replied gravely

* * *

  
“I issued a warning” Oliver spat as he paced teetering on the edge of madness with three bound men knelt in front of him

His sword was drawn as he walked dragging the tip on it along the stone floor, the grating sound echoing through the drafty barracks, rank with the smell of perspiration. Oliver's eyes were dark, his stance overwhelming, like a bear high on their hind legs and his words were no mere trifle, even the hardest of men in that room knew it.

“I bring you into my _home_ ” his voiced raised, gravelled, it sounded like death alone was speaking

John stood to the side, his broad arms crossed over his chest. He had tried, and failed, to talk Oliver – as both his Lord and his friend – out of this jarring display of power. Oliver had the devil's eyes.

“There are things I give you freely, food, shelter, a wage above many others, but one in your midst sought to take something more”

 _Mine._  
_Mark me and I’m yours my Lord_  
_Mine._

“Let his blood and the ones who considered him friend serve as your warning, you will not touch what is _mine_ ” Oliver said, the guttural hiss of his voice not to be mistaken for anything other than rage.

 _Mine_.

He raised his sword above the first, all eyes locked on him and not a fleck of hesitation to be found in his own.

“My Lord, wait” Felicity called from across the room, her small frame wrapped in a cloak, the nearby lamp casting orange hues across the forming bruise

Oliver lowered his sword, his hand almost fumbling it from his grip when he saw her. It had been his fault, he had insisted she stay, he had taken something so beautiful and dangled it in front of wolves.

Felicity felt the silence fall around the room like a heavy blanket across her shoulders. She had watched him from the shadows, Roy practically begging her to return to the chambers. Felicity had seen the face of a Templar in those moments, death at his hands was so easy. She was not one to cast the first stone, death was easy at her own hands too. But the men knelt in front of him held no crime to their name.

For reasons she could not explain, she didn’t wish this for him.

Felicity's shoes tapped out her path across the room where Oliver met her halfway, his eyes shifted from angered to pained.

“Incline you ear to me but a moment my Lord” she whispered with her mouth brushed against his stubbled jaw, each inch like fire against her swollen lip

Oliver led her away from the crowd his arms instinctively wrapped around her body, protecting her from any eyes that might dare.

“I’m sorry my Lord” she breathed as she bowed low once they had ventured from any hungry ears or prowling eyes.

“Do not bow to me, I told you never to, especially not tonight” he said, his words kind and considered almost on the cusp of begging

Felicity straightened her stance and for reasons that were neither planned nor considered she sunk one hand into his and smoothed the other tenderly around his cheek.  
“Stay your blade tonight” she requested as her eyes echoed the sentiment “Do not let more blood be shed in my name tonight”

Oliver's eyes traversed down to Felicity’s hand, wrung around his own. Her beautiful porcelain skin was still tainted with blood, her knuckles grazed and chaffed.

“If it is you asking, you have my word” he relented, she could have asked the world of him in that moment and he would have offered it to her without resistance  
“Rest with me my lord” she urged, as she braced her chest against his and softly kissed his cheek mouthing the word _please_ as she pulled back

Oliver dove his hand into her hair, wrapping silk strands of gold around his aching fingers. He was desperate to touch her, taste her, hold her. To know what her body felt like against his, how the weight of her next to him on the bed moved the mattress. His lips desired to discover more tastes to her, musky-rose scents of her heat coated in arousal for him.

He wanted to plunder her and let the pleasure melt away today; and then he wanted to wrap his arms so very delicately around her until sleep overcame her.

He could not deny her request, even if he wished to. Which he did not.

Oliver turned to his hosted trusted and beckoned John near.  
“See that the men are released from their binds, but have them condemn the man or place them in the stocks” he ordered in a low tone, stepping a few feet away from Felicity, his hand still latched with hers  
John hid his surprise well, Oliver's mind was seldom changed, least of all so quickly and without raised voices and damnations.

“And the other one my lord, the one who she swears saved her?” John asked, his voice kept below a whisper  
“Have him given whatever he asks and moved to an officer’s room, but he is not to leave”  
“Yes my Lord”

* * *

  
“You look at me with sadness” Felicity lamented as Oliver walked her into his chambers, his palm now moulded around her delicate hand

“No my beauty” he fanned the words across her neck before he turned her slowly in his arms, the warm caress of the fire now snaking up her back and trapping the shadows of her lustrous curves “what you see is regret”

Her eyes blinked away from his deep stare and she could feel his hand tremble against the small of her back.  
“Regret that I could not protect you”

His chin dipped, the pain so brutally laid bare on his face and for just a moment Felicity wondered if a lingered kiss might soften it even just a fraction.

Verdant felt deathly silent, no revelry or workings to be heard, and in that moment with only the sounds of blistering wood and popping sap to break the silence, Felicity swore that she heard every thumped beat his heart made.

Oliver pulled an envelope from underneath his cloak and held it out, clenched between troubled fingers.

“What is this?” Felicity asked as her eyes marked the seal, his seal, on the back but her fingers dare not touch it  
“You will leave at sunrise, John will himself take you the journey to Normandy” he pushed the envelope closer to her, but still she refused to take it

“You will cross the channel and find safety where you wish” he stated, only hints of wavering resolve to be found “This letter will see you granted land and wealth wherever you desire it  
There is a lord down there, Lord Palmer, he will see that you are safe in whatever life you chose”

His eyes begged her to take the letter before he lost his notion to send her away and destroy his chance to discover every inch of her body, her heart, her mind and her soul.

“You are sending me away? My Lord, please do not” Felicity pleaded, her forced hand had tipped him too far  
“Felicity, I cannot keep you safe”  
“Then I will be unsafe, but I will stay with you”

He roamed on heavy feet across the room, he could barely convince himself to push this, should she not agree Oliver wasn’t sure how he could take up a cause he desperately wanted to deny.

“Please do not cast me aside” Felicity spoke, her voice cracking, heavy with emotion  
“I am afraid that if I do not, I will never let you leave” Oliver sighed, regret sitting heavy with the sweat on his brow  
“You have your mind set on it?”  
“Yes”

 _No_.

“Then I ask something of you now” she behest  
“Anything”

Felicity's fingers worked slowly on the clasp that held the cloak like tapestry around her. As she released it the cloak sunk into a pool around her feet.

The fabric of her new nightdress even more decidedly thin than the one ruined by blood. Her nipples were budded tightly and the peach hue of them could be seen through it. The fine fabric glided like hands across her body and Oliver felt his throat constricting in jealousy of it.

Gently Felicity tugged the laced ribbon that held the gown in place before shrugging the heavenly fabric from her shoulders. It floated like a feather caught on the slightest of breezes to create it’s own fresh white pool at her feet.

She stood before him, naked. His eyes caressed and devoured her. Naked shoulders dipped into a silken chest before rising up to slight but beautifully rounded breasts that were decorated in rose pink rims of succulent areola before twisting like a funnel into tightly wound nipples that begged to be felt between fingers and danced with a tongue.

Her stomach lay completely bare to him, softness floated down her core and fanned out into ample hips that swayed seductively as she took a step or two, he was unsure, closer to him.

Her navel dropped into her mound, a light dusting of blonde hair grew there hiding the lips his mouth watered for. He could smell her scent as she took on tippy toes one more slow step towards him. Felicity did not dampen her arousal or seek to be ashamed by it. A lover such as Lord Oliver would recognise something other than lust in her eyes and she would not be turned from this path.

She was, after all, not bound by the laws of morality.

Oliver's cock pulled tight across his pants, thrumming at the very sight of her. Engorged and painful with each swayed step she took.

“Let me enjoy you tonight, and you, I – let us enjoy each other” she wistfully spoke  
“I would wish for nothing more, but I swore that I would not take from you that which is offered freely” he sighed, feeling the head of his cock dripping in anticipation and arousal

“Yet, here I am offering myself my Lord and you still deny me” she kissed the words softly into his full lower lip before she snagged it between her teeth and sucked it backwards making a low, unfettered, hiss pass from his famished lips

“Another's hands-” he gritted his teeth  
“Another's hands should be masked by yours”

“Take me as you want, as your eyes reveal” she seduced as her fingers toyed with the closure of his cloak

Fingers felt like fire across his skin, fractions touched against him and his clothes became like smootherings against the flames. She loosed the cloak and it fell without nudging to the floor, the brass embellishments clunking together.

Feather light kisses tempered the fire as she delicately pressed her lips along his jaw, drinking up the tiny beads of perspiration she found there as she threaded open the leather belt hung low around his waist.

With a crack like a whip Felicity pulled it free and watched the sheer delight at the sound pass, unrestrained, over Oliver's face.  
“Another time my Lord if that pleases you so” she whispered with the wings of her lips turning up into a smile that said far more than words.

His hands, no longer able to be held back from her, smoothed up her arms as her fingers set about unfastening the hunter green tunic. When his hands met her neck his thumbs tipped her head up and his lips snatched her own, feasting on them as though it would be his last kiss. His hot breath fanned over her face as his tongue pleaded with slow swipes for entry into her mouth.

Felicity's lips parted and Oliver wasted no time plunging in to explore the soft, warm confines of a home his tongue would gratefully conquer.

His hands stopped the slow procession of her own down the front of his tunic and without words he tore it from his body and threw it across the floor with unbridled passion.

He needed her, before his skin turned to ash from the fire erupting inside, he needed her.

Blindly Felicity's hands dove down his waistband to seek out the hem of his cream-hued chemise. Each inch she moved closer to his raging cock Oliver moaned into her mouth, and his hands sought grip on her body.

They stumbled back towards the bed. His hands kneading into the rounds of her ass pulling forth her own breathy moans to melt into his lips.

Their lips parted for seconds to allow Felicity to pull his chemise over his head and toss it to the ground before her fingers trickled down to the closure of his pants, skating long lines across his chest.

It was as she imagined it, battle scarred and firm. Scars ran across hard muscles that listened with a veil of sweat. Her fingers drove the grooves around his core, watching with glee as the tensed under her light touch. Felicity walked her fingers across the band of his stomach and down the deep v that pointed down towards his groin like an arrow.

But before she could remove his pants, he stayed her hand with a low, guttural sigh.  
“Do I displease you my Lord?”  
“No” he breathed as he stroked delicate lines down her face, brushing fallen hair back behind her shoulders  
“I desire to kiss you where I chose, where my lips hunger”  
“As you wish my Lord” she tempted quietly with wide eyes

He guided her down onto the bed. Her naked body sunk into the luxurious linen, her blonde hair flared out across the pillow as her leg bent at the knee and her eyes beckoned him near.

His fingers skated up her calf, savouring the feeling of the softness under his calloused skin. Felicity’s back arched at the sensation, hands had more often than not been greedy with her, taking only what they needed with little mind to fulfilling what she wanted.

Her inner thighs tingled when his hands reached there. Oliver sunk his palm into her soft flesh, caressing it with hungered eagerness before he pushed it down, spreading her open and pulling a gasp from her throat.

The bed buckled under his pressure as he positioned himself knelt between her legs. His tongue swiped slow streaks across his famished lips. He could smell her musk teasing his nose with the scent of arousal.

His eyes wandered over her body, taking note of the luscious colour of her skin, the way her lips fell open and misted breaths fell across them, swollen from his fierce kissing moments before.

The peach of her nipples wound tight made his cock press even harder into the seam of his pants. He could feel the cords of veins thumping with need. But he would not give into that need tonight, tonight he would taste her, feel the warmth of her sex with his mouth until he drank in everything she offered him.

He kissed a slow trail between her breasts, one hand pinching a nipple between a finger and thumb. She gasped and he relished the sound. He had been with woman, many, but none had made his cock thump this hard with the promise of things to come.

Oliver's lips reached her navel and she twisted delightfully underneath him. Flashes of his thumbs sunk into her navel as she bounced naked on him, his cock buried dangerously deep inside her, overtook his mind and plastered a smile on his face.

“You smile my Lord, why?” she asked delicately as her fingers fisted into his hair, heavy in the contrast of her voice  
“I’m imaging wicked things” he replied honestly as his chin prickled into her navel and his eyes walked up her body  
“I shall delight in your wickedness” she grinned as she twisted her fingers harder and he smacked his lips pleasurably

His mouth returned to her smooth skin but moving faster, unable to prolong his desire to taste her. He reached her mound, hungry, greedy, desperate.

His tongue lightly feathered between her lips before she pulled his head up.  
“My Lord, the punishment for such wanton acts is great” she smiled, aware that the papal law forbid oral sex of any kind for its inability to create a child

“But the rewards are much greater my lady”  
“I am no lady” she breathed through swollen lips

He drove his tongue between her folds delightfully humming at the slick of arousal he already found there.

Felicity writhed under his attentions, the new sensation of his tongue lapping gentle strokes against her clit like nothing she had ever experienced.

His fingers spread her open, letting a cool breeze stroke up between her sweltering folds. The sensation was encompassing and Felicity felt her nipples harden and something low within her stomach coil.

Oliver memorized the soft peach of her sex, it was as he had imagined it. Peach hue with thin gloss of pink beckoning him near. He could resist not a second longer and his lips folded around her clit.

His shoulders forced her legs wider and Felicity panted at the excruciating delight of it.

His fingers held her petal soft folds apart and blew an exhale against her swelling sex. Her eyes widened and her breath hitched in silent entreaty. She bit her lip to stave off pleas of more.

Oliver pressed the heavy flat of his tongue against her achingly sensitive heat and licked, heavy and slow, up the length of her slit.

Felicity buckled with a wordless scream and her hand fisted into his scalp, her other hand twisted into the blankets.

He licked again, faster strokes with decedent curls of the tip of his tongue. He swirled around her clit with light, delectable flicks and tiny, nibbled bites of his teeth.

Her head thrashed across the pillow, insane heat engulfed her. New, astounding, feelings wrapped and coursed through her. Her breasts heaved and as if sensing the tenderness of her nipples his fingers tweaked it with beautiful precision.

“Oliver!” she moaned with heavy, panted breaths  
A hand clasped over her mouth seconds too late to stop her mistake.

Oliver halted his tongue and braced himself up on strong, bulging arms. His eyes watching the twist of emotions across her face.  
“My Lord, I’m sorry” she pleaded with heavy lidded eyes of regret  
She was in no position to be saying his given name.  
“Say it again” Oliver grinned, a lazy finger sinking into her folds and skating around her entrance

“My Lord?” she breathed  
“Say it again” he smiled wickedly as he plunged a finger into her aroused sex  
“Oliver” she gasped, her breath wet with anticipation  
He dropped his tongue to her heat once more, burying his mouth between her slick, wet folds.

His tongue skirted her entrance as his fingers continued to thrust in and out of her. She crooned breaths and her knuckles whitened in the blankets.

“Again” he ordered, his lips dancing the word over her clit  
“Oliver”  
His tongue dipped inside her and she screamed.  
“Oliver” her voice cracked  
His pleasure assault continued, his tongue forging deeper inside her, his fingers now skating figures across her clit. Every slip of his name from her lips spurred him on, thrusting his tongue deeper until he felt her walls caving in around him.

“Again” he grunted, her sex dripping with sweet, delectable arousal as he felt her walls nearing climax  
Her head rocked against the pillow, sweat beaded over her forehead.

“Again Felicity, say it again” he urged as his fingers thrust her to the cusp of orgasm  
“Say my name as you cum” he ordered with gruffed, heavy words

She nodded hurried agreement, her mind completely given over to the moment. She felt the coil deep within her tightening and her breath becoming ragged.

“Fuck” Oliver hummed against her sex as her walls gripped tightly around his tongue  
“Oliver” she gasped as the coil released and her orgasm shook through her entire body

Oliver relished the flood of sweet juices that coated his lips and hungrily he devoured each drip of it, humming through the delight of it.

His knuckle gently eased her through the waves of her orgasm, stroking soft circles over her sensitive clit.

Her body rocked slowly as her eyes regained focus and her tongue swiped achingly slow lines over her bottom lip.

After he drunk in the last of her climax he crawled up alongside her, drawing lazy circles around her breasts. His mouth was glossed with her and his eyes refused to look anywhere but her.

“You said my name” he whispered his nose pressed to her ear  
Before she could apologise for the misstep he pressed a finger to her luscious lips and continued “promise me you will say that again whenever I’m buried inside you”

She turned her head to face him, mischief woven through her arched brow.  
“If his Lord wishes”  
She wiped a finger slowly across his lip, soaking up remnants of her release.

His hand caught hers before he sucked her finger deep into his mouth, stealing the last tastes of her sweet release.  
“Peach” he whispered after he slid the finger from his lips  
“My Lord?”  
“You taste like the most succulent peach, fresh with morning dew” he recounted, saving the decadent taste on his tongue  
His words wouldn’t say it, but the soft hue of her aroused clit was the lush colour of the flesh of a peach too. He would never eat a peach without that delectable memory springing to mind.

“I will stay only a few moments longer” she smiled a soft, lazy smile  
“You will rest here the night, safe in my room. I will leave” he spoke as his fingers combed through her hair

“And tomorrow you still mean for me to leave?” she asked with trepidation  
“No, but I cannot ask you to stay”  
“Then let the choice be mine”  
“And what would you chose?” he asked as his arms cradled her naked body that she rolled against him, her head lay on his chest  
“I’ve already made my choice” she spoke the words into his shoulder before sealing them with a kiss

Oliver noticed the scar on her shoulder as his fingers stroked across it  
“What is it from?” he asked, intrigued

Felicity tipped her shoulder forward to look at it with sleepy eyes.  
“A childhood accident” she replied vaguely  
The story of the same was mainly lost to her, it was so long ago now.  
But she remembered the foolish mistake of a child and her mother's loving concern afterwards. The two of them keeping the secret of it from her father.

 

* * *

 

**[June 1138]**

  
Summer had only just started to touch Havenrock, the days stretched longer and the sun warmed even the forested area where Felicity stood, carving targets on the trunks of weathered Birch trees.

The visitors her father entertained were still at the house and her mother had insisted she make herself scarce. Despite the wall of lies they had built up around her (her lineage, her education, her age and her appearance) concern still felt heavy in the air that these men were something different – something more.

In as much as she knew from the heavy footsteps when the left late at night and the fancy shoes she had seen when they first arrived; they were not men from the Brotherhood.

Names were never given and faces were never seen; shadows.

Felicity would return home before dusk settled across the fields, but until that time came she would steady her hand and practice the only life she knew.

She ran a splint across the arrow head, sharpening it with fast, long stripes. Noah had never allowed her to practice with a bow and arrow, her path already claimed for her with small, deadly knives. His reasons had been practical – a lady could not very well blend into the shadows with a bow strapped her back; whereas knives were easily concealed where unwanted hands ought not venture – but all the same Felicity had been drawn to the weapon.

It was graceful, deadly and swift.  
One day she would be described using the same words.

She pressed her finger into the arrowhead as she tested its sharpness. It would do.

Felicity nocked the arrow at least 100 paces back from the target. The clearing grew still, each noise like cannon fire in her ear before she dulled them down and focused only on the slow, steady breath that fell from her lips.

The breeze crept up her back and dragged loose hair across her face. Her eyes narrowed and her back arm tensed as she pulled the bow string tight.

 _Focus_.

The crack of a distant stick.

 _Focus_.

She released her hand and the fletch of the arrow brushed against her cheek as it left the bow. She expelled a breath as she watched the arrow soar through the heavy forest air and cut into the flesh of the tree marred with her target, her aim at least a foot off.

“Lift your elbow up higher next time” a crisp new voice spoke from behind her

Felicity dropped the bow to the ground, crouching for a split second but enough to kick out her leg and whip a concealed knife from her ankle.

Quicker than he knew what was happening Felicity had flipped the stranger onto his back, crushed his lungs under the weight of her knee and had the sharpened blade of a scabbard with a bound leather handle pressed up against his throat.

“Who sent you?” Felicity asked dragging the knife over his thumping Adam’s apple daring him to so much as swallow  
“No one” the young voice strained to get air, his hands raised above his head in surrender.  
Her eyes stared at him, watching every expression to see if any gave away a deception.

He was young, just a few years older than her. His clothes were made of fine fabrics, his hair long and pulled back at the nape of his neck – he was a noble; or at least wore the trimmings of one.

“My father is nearby, I’m staying in town”  
The blade pressed heavier against his throat; a liar always flinches.  
He could barely breath, every one he took like a laboured challenge. He must have been double her size, but he was frozen, disorientated by the speed in which she managed to overtake him; and, his breath slick and his heart thumping there was another thing that kept him anchored there, her eyes. The lightest blue, like a cloudless summer sky, wisps of darker blue hugged the pupil, weaving like a turbulent ocean around that black pearl.

Iridescent.

It hit her like a sudden surge of pain, dazzling in its scope, her fingers numbed, her breath stagnated and her brain furiously fought for control over her senses.

An arrow had pierced her shoulder, the pain was searing and knocked her young body off balance. Shards of black rafted through her eyes as she searched the curtain of trees surrounding her.

A boy the same age as the other appeared from a brushed thicket, a second arrow nocked and aimed at Felicity.

“Tommy what did you do?” Oliver grasped as air stormed in to his lungs  
“I saw someone on top of you, I thought” Tommy stumbled as his eyes wavered between Oliver and the person he now realised was a child younger than them  
“Are you okay?” Oliver asked as he picked himself up off the forest floor

Her crystal-blue eyes had shadowed over and her lips were settled slightly parted but there was not a stitch of fear to be found there.

Tommy lowered his bow as he crept closer, breaking the undergrowth below his heavy foot.  
“It’s a girl?” he gaped, his eyes widened with disbelief and tarnished with regret “I shot a little girl”

“Please, I have a nursemaid not far from here, she can help you” Oliver spoke with his hand outstretched and his eyes seeped in worry

Felicity kept silent, as she tried to focus on anywhere but the pain resonating from her shoulder. She needed to get the arrow out, it wasn’t deep and she could still move her shoulder, the thinner boy had missed anything vital in his shot.

Keeping her eyes up her hands found a stick broken amongst the cast offs littering the forest floor. With a swift hand she ran it down the skirt of her dress before she held it tightly between her teeth and sucked in a slow and steady breath.

“What are you doing? Don’t do that” Oliver said as he jostled a step or two forward, only for Felicity to take two steps backwards.  
She steeled every ounce of resolve she had.

 _Focus_.  
She pulled the arrow from her shoulder and ground her teeth into the splintering wood as she wrenched backwards in pain. A tear she was unable to holster slipped from her eye and burned a track down her blushed cheek.

She dropped the arrow with a heavy expel of stagnant breath.  
“Please, let us help you” Oliver pleaded, taking for granted her lapse into shock to rush her, wrapping his hand around him arm.

Felicity wavered as her eyes blinked furiously, trying to regain control. She could feel the blood draining from her body and seeping through her dress, but she needed to be in control of her body a little bit longer.

 _Focus_.  
Felicity pushed the young Oliver away and took off with a sudden surge of adrenaline pumping through her small frame.

“Wait, you forgot your knife” Oliver called as he stooped to collect the dropped worn-leather handled scabbard

“Should we follow her?” Tommy asked hesitantly  
But she was already gone.

 

* * *

 

**[Present Day]**

  
Felicity twisted a blanket of fine woven linen in a rich hue of blue around her naked body as she willed herself awake. Her hair was a tumble of blonde and her eyes were a lighter shade of blue than they had been the night before.

Her body still remembered the gentle caress of his hands, exploring her like a fine painting, with barely a touch felt above feather. He had lay with her in a way she had not expected, in a way that seemed so removed from the portrait he had been before she stayed his blade against his own men.

Her bare feet steadied her as she rose off the bed and slipped carefully through the luxurious bed curtains.

Oliver had not stayed the night with her and sometime when he thought she was well into sleep he had slid from the bed, after kissing her once against the temple, dressed himself and left.

Her presence in his room could be explained and no one would be remiss to assume what may have gone on there, but there was a level of secrecy those who must, kept. Spending a night in the room of a woman you were not married to would draw questions from those with a crusade to ask them.

Felicity had waited, still in the large bed, for some time until she was sure he would not be returning. With nothing but the orange glow from the ember of the once roaring fire Felicity searched the room and came up with nothing, especially not a ring that carried the emblem of the Assassin Brotherhood.

There had been only one place she had not looked, the door to the other room locked up and no key to be found.

She had relented and slipped back into the bed, she knew the door to his chambers would be guarded and there was nothing more to be done that night. All she could do was wait to see what the morning brought.

And as she stood there, her feet slightly raised on her toes on the hard wooden floor, still warmed with the lingered heat from the nearby fireplace, her naked skin tickled under the expensive fabric and her mouth stained with a fine peppering of red from his hungered kisses the night before; she was not surprised to see Oliver standing in the small locked room, a flood of papers in his hand and the door wide open.

She walked slowly, the only sound that of the fabric spilled around her feet brushing across the floor. Most would not have heard it, but Oliver’s ears were more trained than she had expected and before she could reach the doorway he looked up and smiled.

Felicity drove her eyes over his shoulder, hoping for a glimpse of what the famed Knight kept hidden behind oak and steel, but all she could see was a map spread out of the table, the topography of it seemed so familiar but she could not see enough from this angle to decipher anything more than forests and valleys from it.

Oliver stepped out from the room, pulling the heavy door closed behind him. The notion of war was something he desperately wanted to keep Felicity far from.

His fingers floated through her hair, twisting through wisps and running them over his calloused hands like salve.  
“How is it that you are even more beautiful in the morning _Peach_ ” he whispered, his lips breathing the words against her neck as he leaned it and danced a lingered kiss there, relishing the way he could almost smell himself on her skin

His mind tipped back to the night before, _had he kissed her there, that exact spot? Had that been one of the moments she had arched her back and rubbed her breasts against him? Had his fingers traced the vein than ran underneath her milky complexion? Had he felt her pulse rate rising with the flat of his tongue?_

“Where did you sleep?” she asked as her fingers walked a path of their own up the deep grooves of his chiselled and scarred chest

The story of each was one she found herself foolishly hoping to hear one day.  
“Not far” he answered, pressing three light kisses across her cheekbone  
“Is this to be goodbye?” he asked in a simmered husk of a voice

“I wish to stay my Lord, I’m not ready to leave”  
She had not found what she was looking for.

His hands cupped around her face, tipping it up a little so her could watch those eyes he so desperately wanted to lose himself in.

“Felicity” he breathed her name like a dream floating from his lips  
She waited, expectantly, for more as she took her time to linger within the deep oceanic pools of his eyes.

Then a wave, sudden and powerful. Like the type that could sink a ship before the captain could sound the alarm.

Flashes of pain stabbed at her side, like a hot knife slicing through her skin, tearing, ripping, scourging.

Her breath was stolen, ripped up from her lungs without restraint.  
Her vision was blurred, broken.  
_Focus_.

Blood drowned her feet.  
She saw it pool into the lines on her hands.

The world stopped.  
Thump. It was her heart.  
Thump. It was his body.

 _Death_.  
The scent of it filled her nose and stained her skin.

Death.  
A concealed face.

A portent  
An omen  
_Death_.

Flashes of her mother, a warmed smile, a mane of golden hair and eyes that would say a million words without a single one passing across her lips.

Death wrapped his arms around her, stealing her from this world.  
Death extended his fingers towards her, an eerie warning played through the visions given to her.

She saw the future.

Her reprisal would mean her blood.  
Death would take them both.  
Take them all.

 _Focus_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut drought over... Because this counts right?


	9. Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)

“Felicity?”  
Her name swirled around her head, rolling in waves like she had been pulled beneath them. Drowning in the air that filled her lungs.

“Felicity?”  
Again, she took a breath, sudden, full.  
Darkness swarmed around her, stealing every sense from her.

“Felicity.”  
Her eyes shot open and the gasp was of air was immediate. She thought she might find herself surrounded by the ocean, wet and cold but instead she was lying on the floor, Oliver’s arms around her, holding her body against his with a pained look threaded through every line on his face.

What she had felt had seemed so real. She cupped a hand over her side, positive she would find blood there, but pulling it back it was as clean as it had been moments before.

She had been drowning, yet she remained dry.  
“Forgive me my lord,” she whispered as she struggled to sit up  
“You fainted, I will fetch a physician,” Oliver spoke, his voice trembled   
“No,” she caught his arm as he stood, “I’m fine.”

She stood slowly as his hands held her elbow to steady her rise. Shaky and silent they walked to the chaise where he sat her down and kneeled in front of her, watching as the colour slowly bled back into her cheeks.

Felicity’s mother was blessed with a gift – or cursed as many viewed it. Some called it Magi, others a witch, but those within the Brotherhood called it the Sense of an Eagle. Many trained for years to gain Eagle Vision, to see what others could not, to have eyes that could sense foe from friend and see escape where normal eyes saw none. Beyond the Vision came the Sense, those that could see the path a target would take long before they actually did allowing the assassin to hide in the shadows and strike like the breeze against ones neck.

Gone before you even knew.

But her mother was not of the Creed and her gifts extended beyond those even the Mentors hoped to achieve. Her mother could see the future as though it were already written.

The visions would hit her hard, unforgivingly hard. She would crumble to the floor chanting words in Latin “ _Mortem Parca affert_ ” (Fate brings Death) and each time death would reach his long nimble fingers to steal the life she saw, he would take with him a day of her own, carving away at her soul.

It was fractured and broken and never enough to stop the inevitable and her mother would fight it at every turn, desperate not to know in case the death she saw would one day be her own.  
“Are you okay?” Oliver asked, a gentle hand lay on her knee, worry written across his brow   
“I am, perhaps just hungry,” she lied, the remnants of her visions still plaguing her mind  
“I’ll have food brought to you soon,” he offered kindly  
She repaid with a tipped smile of thanks.

Oliver stood from the floor before folding a hand gently through her tousled hair, skimming against her warmed cheek.  
“What are we doing today my Lord?” she asked as her head relaxed into his palm

“You will stay here, in this room,” Oliver spoke quietly but each word spoken with importance   
“Is that an order my Lord?” Felicity asked as she stood from the chaise and ran a finger down his taunt bicep

“A gentle request,” he smiled as he took her hand and pressed a tender kiss to her knuckles   
She smiled and he could not resist the pull of her rose lips a moment longer. Their fingers entwined as he swept under her chin, lifting it just enough to grasp her lips between his.

The pout of her lips framed around his lower lip, relishing the slight prick of his stubble against the sensitive skin. His tongue didn’t breach the seam of her lips, rather it was content to simply dance across her cupid’s bow.

As he pulled away her teeth sunk into his lip, capturing him without restraint. Felicity did not believe that Oliver wanted for a dutiful lover who would lie on her back and not meet his tenacity with her own and when he smiled in response to her teasing she knew she had been right.

“Perhaps milady would prefer an order,” he growled, deep and low from his chest  
“Perhaps,” she smiled, releasing his lip from her snare

“But, I should need things from my room,” she said as she ran a stroke of her palm down the blanket still wrapped around her, “unless you wish that I remain dressed in a blanket all day.”  
“Roy will get whatever you need or have the ladies do it for you. Unless it is your intimates, then allow me,” he smiled as his fingers toyed with the rim of the blanket against her chest

“For last night, perhaps my Lord would allow me?” she breathed the words against his cheek as her lips skimmed his ear and her hands jostled against the tie of his pants

“I am a fool of a man,” he sighed, stopping her hands with his own, “but I’m afraid if we start this I will never leave this room,” he added with a smile that was as charming as it was devilish   
She floated her wrists from his grip and drew lines across the shape of his torso, skimming her nails across the groves of it  
“And why should you need to?”  
“There are things to be done,” he sighed, anguished that they would pull him away from where his body desired to stay

Felicity shrugged softly, her eyes a twisted tapestry of blues that would see a man such as Oliver happily drown in them.

“My sister has asked to visit you but I will send her away for another time if you wish,” he spoke calmly, willing the thumping between his thighs to dampen  
“No, I should enjoy her company,” Felicity smiled, a soft peach fanning across her cheeks as Oliver gently stroked it with the back of his hand  
“Very well.”

Oliver turned his back to her to collect the shirt draped over the arm of the nearby chaise. Her eyes tracked the scars across his back, crossed over each other in long sweeping lines, raised and twisted, the skin had healed some time ago as best as it could.  
“Do they scare you?” he asked, holding the shirt against his chest

“No, my Lord.”   
“Call me Oliver.”  
She traced a finger around the outside of his lip, “if I call you Oliver, you might never leave the room,” she smiled, tapping her finger onto his lip with the last word

“Perhaps,” she continued, “I shall keep that to use for my advantage another day.”  
“Then I will be at your mercy,” he spoke, bowing his head as his eyes stay locked to her

“What are they from?” she asked quietly, as she turned him to see them once more and he didn’t resist   
“Battle,” he replied simply   
They were like no battle scars she had seen before. The lines were strikes, not from a blade or punctures like those made with a spear. They were precise, each one account a few inches apart, no battle would produce such a thing.

Cooper wore similar ones, marks his father had given him for a perceived failure, Felicity knew what they were. A band made of leather woven with stones made those scars.

“You have seen much battle my Lord.”  
She reached out and touched them softly and he shuddered underneath it.

“I’m sorry,” she apologised, stepping back from him  
“Don’t be,” he lamented, his voice soft, almost broken. A woman had not touched them, not like Felicity just had, “most are too frightened to touch them.”  
“I am not afraid.”   
“Only of love?”  
“The unknown,” she whispered  
“For now,” he turned, their bodies face to face once more before he leaned in and placed a lingered kiss against her forehead.

“I will return soon, please stay here,” he spoke as he pulled back, the words misting across her skin, his voice rasped and pleading

“Orders do not come with pleases my Lord,” she replied with a Cheshire smile   
His brow raised, pitched high, as his lips twisted once more into a smile that promised a world of the less ordinary.  
“Stay here,” he ordered  
“As you wish it,” she bowed

 

* * *

 

John was where he usually was, sitting propped against a wall a few feet away from Oliver’s chamber door when Oliver emerged from behind the same. Oliver pulled the door closed and turned his attention to Roy who immediately stood from his post.

“When Thea comes by you will let her in and close the door. Any maids that enter you will let them in, watch them and then close the door once they leave,” Oliver instructed  
“And the lady?” Roy asked, trying to hide his delight at the mention of Thea’s name  
“She will stay inside, you will get her whatever she needs without leaving this spot. If she wishes to leave then send someone to find me. Understood?”  
“Yes my Lord.”

Oliver waited for a moment longer to ensure Roy had no further questions before he nodded to John who followed him step for step away from his chambers.

“The man from last night, where is he?” Oliver asked as the two strode the narrow corridors  
“Still in his room my Lord, he asks when he will return to the barracks,” John replied,   
hushed words shared between friends   
“And what have you learned of him?”  
John caught Oliver's arm and stopped him mid step, “Oliver,” he rasped, “very little.”  
“Not one man swears for him outside of the uniform?”   
“Few have had words with him in his time here and those that have cannot be sure it was even him. It’s as though he is a shadow walking amongst us, unnoticed.”

“Well, we have noticed now,” Oliver replied as they paused outside the door, “say nothing unless called upon.”  
John nodded before he knocked twice and opened the rustic oak door.

“My Lord,” Cooper greeted them with a reluctant bow, dressed in fresh leathers and shirt   
“I owe you many thanks. The woman you protected means a great deal to me,” Oliver spoke as he walked past John who stood as though he was barricading the doorway  
“I would do the same for any woman.”  
“Quite, as would I,” Oliver insisted, “perhaps you could tell me what happened? I don’t wish to trouble her with remembering such a trauma.”

“I heard a noise, saw the door open and caught a glimpse of his attempts to harm her, a fight ensued and I won,” Cooper replied briskly, he could tell Oliver’s questions were asked to see if his story had changed any from that given the night before.  
“Did you know the man?”  
“No, you have many men and I am not familiar with them all.”

Oliver walked the room slowly before stopping in front of the dagger placed on the table, the blood now cleaned from its thin polished blade.  
“Your blade is a fine blade,” Oliver remarked as he grazed a finger over the tip, it was sharp, beyond what most mercenaries would bother with.  
“Thank you,” Cooper quietly agreed

“Light, quick, designed to slice.”  
Oliver lighted the blade and juggled it from one hand to the other before slicing through the air.   
“You know your blades,” Cooper noted   
“I ought to,” Oliver mused before he lay the dagger back down as he had found it, “It is not one you would ordinarily puncture with, an execution perhaps, but a fight? The wound to his neck was intimate.”  
The blade was short and to kill someone with such a blade, in one move and leaving no abrasions on the man’s hand, was a skill that very few possessed.  
“Death itself is intimate is it not?”  
“Very true,” Oliver echoed  
Though this death required looking into the man’s eyes, perhaps close enough to feel his last breath on your face.

“All the same, I will reward you accordingly,” Oliver chirped, wishing to offer no more of the thoughts coursing through his brain, “do you have family I might gift land to?”  
“No my Lord”   
“Cousins, Aunts, bastard children perhaps?”  
“I have none.”  
“I assume then that a leave of duty with pay to visit them will not be wanted either?”  
“I would prefer to fight on.”  
Cooper shifted under Oliver’s gaze, unspoken words hung between them. One the hunter and the other the hunted; though which one was which was left undecided.

“Perhaps you could tell me what it is you seek?”  
“I did not assist for reward, but because it was right,” Cooper insisted

Oliver moved around the room some more, his eyes drinking in weathered furniture and a vase of dried flowers before both his eyes and his fingers touched the rim of a fruit bowl, almost emptied of its fruit.  
“My lady will require a person I can trust,” Oliver reasoned as he plucked the last remaining apple   
He threw is gently at Cooper, as test to see with which hand he would catch it. It landed neatly in Cooper’s left hand, but watching Oliver intently, he switched hands before he took a slow and deliberate bite, the sound of crunching apple echoing off the walls.

“If she is agreeable I wish to appoint you as her personal guard,” Oliver finished, stopping once more beside the door  
“If you wish it.”  
“You have far more honour than any mercenary I have known.”  
Cooper nodded in thanks

“May I return to the barracks now?” Cooper asked   
“This will be your room for now, when Felicity,” Oliver paused to see if Cooper flinched at her name, he did not, “returns to the castle you will be given a room close to hers.”  
“As you ask.”

 

* * *

 

  
“May I ask what you are doing my Lord?” John asked as he walked alongside Oliver in yet another narrow corridor   
“Find out which hand he fights with.”   
“And this matters why?”  
“Just now he tried to show me he could use either, but a fighter will always favour one over the other and the wound was inflicted by someone who favours the right.”

“So you don’t believe his story?”  
“I believe there are parts missing.”  
“Calling him a liar makes one of Felicity as well,” John surmised   
“I know,” Oliver spoke forlornly

“I offered her land, a title, more money than most could see in a lifetime,” he recounted, “she would not take any of it.”  
“Perhaps she is a woman not to be bought,” John shrugged, though other possibilities flooded his mind  
“I am sure she’s not.”  
“Perhaps she stays for love?”  
“I think she stays for something more, something different,” Oliver mused   
“What?”  
“Secrets.”

“If they know what I had planned to do then my whole family is in danger,” Oliver hushed as he pulled John into a darkened corner, words now needing to be spoken in the strictest of confidences   
“Then send them away my Lord,” John urged  
“No, someone knew, someone knows.”  
“By putting them together what do you hope to find out?”  
“Perhaps nothing, perhaps everything,” Oliver replied vaguely

“Do you care for her?”  
Oliver’s eyes sunk into John’s.   
“Deeply,” he sighed

“What would you have me do?”  
“Nothing,” Oliver paused, his eyes woven with concern, “but whatever happens you will protect my sister above all else. The Templars will not hesitate to use her.”  
“Yes my Lord,” John nodded

* * *

  
“Are you alright?” Thea squeaked as she ran into the room and threw her arms around Felicity  
“I am fine Thea,” Felicity smiled as the young girl dropped her embrace and stepped back, worried tears still caught in the corner of her youthful eyes  
“I was worried for you, no one would tell me what had happened,” she continued with a hand pressed her to thumping chest, “I found out this morning and, my god”  
She fell into a second embrace, those trapped tears now springing free and melting into Felicity’s shoulder.  
“Thea, please, you need not be worried,” Felicity urged, pulling her back, “I am fine.”

She walked over to the tray that the kitchen maid had placed wordlessly on the table in front of the window.  
“Perhaps you will eat with me instead,” Felicity offered as she ran a finger slowly around the edge of the tray brimming with fruits, cured meats and fresh rolls

Thea shook her head vigorously as she placed a hand across her mouth   
“The smell of cured meats makes me want to lose my stomach,” she squirmed   
“Are you unwell?” Felicity asked as she plucked a grape from the branch and sucked it into her mouth  
“Mother thinks it might be allergies,” Thea shrugged, her eyes watching the meat as though it might launch itself at her any minute   
“In winter?”   
“She told me I ought to stay in bed, but I wanted to come see you,” Thea nodded, proud of her small act of defiance, “does my brother treat you well?”  
“I would not be here if he didn’t,” Felicity answered, somewhat vaguely  
She had learned that when it came to his sister he would wish her ignorance over her knowing the realities of life, those of a sexual nature included.   
“I should say he loves you,” she replied with a swift nod of her head

Felicity said nothing, but offered a kindly smile in repayment of Thea’s words. The young girl, however, was unsatisfied with that token.

“You do not think so?”  
“Come,” Felicity smiled as she took Thea’s hand and lead her across the room to the chess game already set up, “let us not talk about these things. Let us play instead.”  
“You distract me?” Thea laughed  
“Does it work?”

“After you answer me one question?”  
“Ask it,” Felicity relented   
“What does love feel like?”  
Felicity blew out a soft exhale, the question was not one she didn’t wish to answer but rather one she was unsure of the answer herself.  
“I do know that love feels different for us all,” she paused, considering her words carefully, “but I should like to think that we know once we have it and there is never any question should we lose it.”

* * *

  
“I should hope that thug was not your doing,” Moira jeered as she walked in the estate sitting room where both Laurel and Sara had taken their lunch   
“I had nothing to do with it,” Laurel snipped, as she sat low in the armchair, her eyes anchored out into the garden below, “pity though”  
“Insolent girl, do you know where she stays now?”  
Laurel shook her head and Sara shrunk further into the corner behind the arguing pair.

“In his chambers,” Moira snipped, “I am told they were quite loud last night in their activities.”  
“Good, the sooner he will tire of her then.”

“She’s not you,” Sara snickered, much louder than she had meant to   
Laurel shot the full force of her glare back towards her sister.  
“What are you even doing here?” she screamed as she threw the cup she had been holding across the room, smashing it against the floor “you’re a wretched sister.”

“Father should lock you up in a convent, you’re no good to anyone,” she continued spitting her rage  
Sara left the room, wordless but not broken. Pressing her body into the wall outside the door she listened on.

“Quite a temper you have, you need to learn to stem it and hold your tongue,” Moira instructed   
“She’s just my sister, useless, what could I possibly need from her?”  
“We all need pawns dear, those that do the work so that we need not get out gentile hands dirty.”  
“She will do what she is told!”  
“Perhaps.”

Laurel banged a fist against the chair, frustrated and volatile, “perhaps if your son gave me my dues…”  
“You cast a rod between him and his best friend,” Moira interrupted, “what reaction were you hoping for? You were a foolish girl then and you have not learned a thing since.”

“So there is no hope?” Laurel gritted bitterly “Why am I still here if there is no hope?”  
“I didn’t say that dear,” Moira corrected, pursing her lips as she spoke calmly, her emotions kept well in check, “my son is meant for great things, whether he wants them or not, together we will help him achieve them.”  
“How?”  
Moira patted a strong palm against Laurel’s shoulder, it was not a kindly gesture but one that subtly spoke to the virtues of playing the game you were told.  
“In good time.”

* * *

  
It was nearing dusk when Oliver returned to his chambers to find a chambermaid dutifully threading the side laces of Felicity’s regal blue bliaut and another fastening her hair in a braided crown.

“You may leave,” he instructed and the two instantly stopped work and hurried from the room  
“I think you scared them.”   
Felicity smiled with her back to him, watching him in the mirror as he kicked off his boots and stripped away his cloak, carelessly throwing it onto the floor, all while he walked towards her, now only dressed in a billowing shirt and tan pants.

“My lord will you tie my laces?” Felicity asked as the sides of her court dress gaped open, the laces only half tied  
“No,” he spoke crisply as he loosened the woven threads more  
“Then we will be late to supper,” she smiled as he positioned himself behind her, one hand slipping between the bliaut and her chemise, the other wrapping through he hair, tousling it loose from the pinned style.

He kissed her neck, searching under the embroidered trim of the dress, for the warmth of her skin. Felicity let her eyes lapse closed to enjoy the slow caress of his hands and lips. Her hair tumbled across his face before he pushed it to the side, tracing the centre of her neck and along her shoulder.

Her chest raised and fell, deeper with each lingering kiss he showered on her body. Oliver gripped the flimsy fabric of her chemise, his mind considering how easily he could tear it to feel the soft silk of her skin.  
“Tell me to stop and we will make fine time,” he breathed, peppering the words with kisses along her shoulder  
“And if I do not, what then?” she asked, pulling her eyes back to meet with the deep pool of his own  
Oliver slipped bliaut from her shoulders, pooling the heavy velvet around her feet. He nipped slow, hopped kisses up her neck, his teeth scraping just enough against the sensitive skin to send a wave of goose bumps flaring down her back.  
“Then we will be very late,” he growled, guttural, entrancing

The white of her chemise taunted Oliver, touching her body in places he needed to feel with his own calloused hands. Gripping her waist tightly between his palms he turned her, their eyes locking and their bodies so treacherously close that the scent of sin hung like mistletoe above them.  
“Is it offered to me?” he rasped, desperate to hold onto whatever semblance of control he had left, knowing that with one word she could make him lose it.

Felicity paused over her answer and lifted a solitary finger into the air. She brushed it through the stubble on his jaw with a languid stroke that Oliver melted into with a tortured growl.  
“Yes,” she whispered  
Without letting a further second separate them Oliver lifted her into the air and her legs wrapped strongly around his waist. Their lips crashed together, bouncing off each other in heated, needy flurries.

They reached the bed in a twisted path before Felicity untwined her legs and Oliver devilishly threw her onto the bed.

Her body melted into the luxurious hues of purple linen as she crawled backwards on her elbows, the soft chemise gliding up her bare legs and pulling a guttural groan from deep within Oliver's chest. The bed bowed to him as he climbed above her, hovering so close their breaths misted together.

Wordlessly he kissed her, snatching her plump lips between his own greedily and without stalling as his hand rolled up the inside of her leg. Her scent was strong in his nose and it acted like fuel to the fire that burned within him.

He forced her dress up over her hips as his eyes roved over her naked flesh. Soft hues of cream and pink lit by the fading light of the sun as it began to set outside the window.

Felicity tore at the ties of his pants, her bottom snatched between her teeth. He smiled at her efforts as his cock, erect and dripping with pre-cum, sprung out from behind its sheath of linen and cord.

Her slender fingers gripped him tightly at the base, pumping him half way up the shaft before pulling back down. The back of his thighs tightened and his breath grew more panted with every teasingly long stroke she gave it, never quite rolling over the head.

Oliver slid his thumb between her folds, parting them with the precision of a trained painter with his brush. She gripped his cock hard as his thumb wove circles around her clit, teasing and pleasuring it. Her body twitched for him as he added a second finger to swirl around the juices that pooled between her folds.

She tugged him closer, holding his cock just above her folds. His hands left off her, sliding instead under the chemise to feel the tight buds of her nipples.

Arching her hips off the bed Felicity stroked his cock through her folds, relishing the feel of his smooth member gliding between her.  
“Fuck me my Lord,” she smiled wickedly as she dipped the head of his cock just a fraction inside her  
“Say it,” Oliver spoke like gravel   
Her eyes widened as he pushed into her hand, entering her a little deeper, stretching her a little more. She blinked, heavy black lashes against blushed cheeks.  
“Fuck me, Oliver,” she purred and he instantly reacted, driving his cock deep inside.

She gasped and his lips stole it from her mouth. His hand and elbow pushed lopsided into the mattress as he continued to burrow deeper until he was buried to the hilt.

Felicity had never felt so full, nor her walls felt so stretched. Her eyes fluttered closed, her head turned to the side, kissing the taunt wrist she found there.  
“Look at me,” he whispered, caressing her cheek with his other hand

His thumb dragged across her cheek, moving her face so that their eyes met. He needed to see her, to believe that this held as much promise for her as it did for him. She met his eyes with a smile, her lips gently caressing each other, moistening them silently before she craned her neck to envelope his lower lip with her own.

Whatever secrets she wanted, she need only have asked for them at that moment.

With his shaft still buried inside her warm body Oliver sat back on his heels simultaneously pulling Felicity off the bed and onto his lap with her chemise flaring out over them, hiding their entwinement behind a thin curtain of pure white. She gasped breathlessly at the sudden change of pressure and he drunk it up, snaring her lip between his own teeth before his tongue swooped over it.

He watched the breath pass silently over her lips as her body shifted to take in his size. A veil of sweat glistened across her skin and Oliver danced a languid finger over her collarbone to snare it before he pushed down the sleeves of her dress exposing her breasts to his gaze.

With a budded nipple caught between his thumb and forefinger and his other hand anchored at the small of her back he shifted just enough underneath her to send a bolt of pleasure careening up her spine.

“Dance for me,” he whispered as the hand at her back gently rocked her forward, crushing his sensitive head against her soft walls  
Felicity lifted her hips off his lap just enough so that only air could pass under them as she folded her arms around his neck and dragged her nails up his back.

Just as he requested, she started a teasingly-slow rock, swooping her hips to lift him out just a fraction before rolling back town to thrust him deeper.

Oliver’s hand gripped tighter at her back as flames of pleasure splintered into every nerve ending he possessed. His head dropped to her chest, peppering her misted skin with fevered kisses and breathy moans.

Felicity dug her nails into his back as her other hands ploughed through his rugged hair, combing it between her fingers and gripping her nails into the scalp.

His mouth caressed her nipple, budded and pink as his hands massaged the other in slow, deep pressure. The flat of his tongue licked up her breast before his teeth grazed against his, enjoying the way it matched the pressure of her scraping nails.

Cries of pleasure ricocheted off every surface as they grew louder and their breaths grew hotter.

He pushed her faster, lifting himself off the heels of his feet to press deeper inside her. Every part of his body tensed, his cock beating between her walls and his balls stretching with release.  
“Come for me,” he rasped, snatching the hair that dangled down her back so that he might ravish her neck with desperate kisses  
“With my name on your lips,” he continued, his voice strangled with need

Her walls clamped around him, pulsing quicker as he pushed her deeper.  
“Felici…” he growled her name, tapering off the end  
He needed this torture to end, to feel her warm juices explode around him so he could find his own release thereafter.

Felicity clawed at his scalp, tearing his head backwards, their foreheads now locked against each other.  
“You first,” she commanded, never stilling the thrust of her hips

Oliver’s face grew hot, his vision a blur of light and colours as blood rushed towards his cock. He was so close…  
“Fuck,” he growled as he lifted her off him and dropped her back onto the bed  
She gaped at the sudden loss of pressure against her walls before his fingers reached inside her.

Her hand wrapped around his cock now slick with her own cream. Three short pumps of his shaft with her thumb rolling over the head, and he was firing long, thick streams of white seed across her stomach with strangled groans of pleasure.

His fingers twisted and stroked inside her as his thumb rubbed against her clit, edging her closer to the release that was pooling inside and seconds after his release she found her own, his with name dripping like honey from her ruby lips.

Smiling at her Oliver drew his hands up to his mouth and carefully licked each finger, relishing the way she tasted.

“And how many Papal laws did we break this time my Lord?” she whispered as she propped herself up on her shoulders, his still-warm seed sliding slowly down her stomach   
“Did you enjoy it?” he whispered before he dragged his fingers under his nose to breath in any remaining scent   
She smiled but offered him no answer.  
“Then I count five,” he grinned as he took his nearby shirt and wiped it across her stomach

He tossed the shirt over the foot of the bed and swooped his arms around Felicity, lifting her up with ease once more. He spent seconds that felt like hours studying her face, the way her eyes seemed so much bluer, the way she had gnawed her lower lip, spotting it with red marks and the dusting of pink flushed across her cheeks.

Was she to be his Delilah?  
His Eve?  
His temptress?

If his fate lay in her hands, then so be it.

He kissed her softly, like a feather lightly floated across her lips; and Felicity kissed him back, so swallowed up in the moment that, for just a second, she felt something she had never known before.

‘ _We know once we have it’_

 


	10. Pater

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Pater is Latin for Father.
> 
> HELLOOOO  
> So thank you firstly for sticking with me, the hiatus of this story was needed to hone the next few chapters. 
> 
> A lot happens in this one and I needed to be sure that I gave you the right information at the right time for this little tale I'm weaving.
> 
> Enjoy the smuts  
> Xox

 

“You’re late,” Moira reprimanded as Oliver's heavy-soled boots announced their arrival in the dining hall  
“Forgive me mother, I had something that required my full attention,” Oliver smiled, his eyes staying trained on Felicity who walked the table opposite him even as he leant down and brushed a kiss to Moira’s cheek  
“I’m sure,” Moira replied, her eyes caged as she too watched Felicity sink into her chair

“What matters?” Thea asked, the naivety of her question getting a cold response from her mother  
“Conquering some _beautiful_ lands,” Oliver replied, a smile still locked across his lips even as he took his own seat and ushered everyone to begin eating  
“What lands?” Thea continued, oblivious to the soft chuckle that was coming from the nearby servers

Felicity shifted in her seat, her eyes dropped to her plate as Oliver grazed his foot up the back of her calf, his actions shielded by the table.  
“Distant but heavenly,” Oliver remarked, instinctively drawing his tongue across her lips, “I believe I will need to visit them again soon.”

Thea went to ask another question before Moira slapped a palm against the hard wood of the table, “enough Thea.”  
“But, I…”  
“Eat your food.”  
Thea sighed, but didn’t fight the issue a moment longer.

Oliver let a few minutes lapse in wordless ambience before he leaned over and slowly brushed Felicity’s hair back behind her ear, a gesture that was strongly scrutinised by his mother.

“Eat up my peach, you will need your strength,” he whispered, his tone strangled but light  
Felicity shifted her eyes toward him, just the softest of smiles pressed to her rose-tinted lips.  
“I would have you right here on this very table if I could,” he growled, his lips ghosting the words against the seam of her ear.

“Perhaps you could share your thoughts with us all, my son,” Moira piped with twisted lips and thinned eyes  
Oliver settled back into his chair and smiled, a brimming smile that weaved its way up his cheeks and through his azure eyes.  
“Forgive me mother,” he quipped, the smile not fading in the least.

 

* * *

 

The table had remained almost deathly silent for the rest of the evening meal and as soon as the last morsel was finished Moira retired herself and Thea to bed for the night. Oliver and Felicity had lingered alone a little while longer, drinking goblets of wine and eating roasted chestnuts as a large, roaring fire nearby warmed their skin.

Oliver’s hands became more adventurous as the night wore on, traversing her leg before he too disappeared under the table.

Felicity had laughed, genuinely and raucously – the latter undoubtedly as a result of the finely aged wine – as he made a fuss of peeling off her shoes and stockings before hiking up her dress to reveal her naked thighs. He devoured them with grunts and howls of approval, despite the noise of the same echoing through the Grand Hall.

It had been around that time, Oliver still heaping overt displays of affection under the table, when John had appeared and suggested that they take their lechery somewhere a little more _private_ , as he held back a grin.

Felicity had not heard it, but before they disappeared across the drawbridge, John had whispered that is was pleasantly surprising to see Oliver “of good cheer” again.

Now safely absconded in their room, the raucous behaviour was paired back, replaced instead by a thick air of desire.  
  
“You torment your mother,” Felicity remarked as she began the arduous task of pulling pins from her curled locks  
Oliver danced a feathered trail of kissed down her neck as his fingers slowly loosened the laces at the front of her bodice.

“Where will you sleep tonight?” she asked, her eyes lulled closed at the sensual movement of his lips together with the prickle of his scruff against her delicate skin.  
“In another room,” he almost grimaced at the thought, but he would maintain a level of decorum to, at least publicly, protect Felicity’s reputation.

She turned in her arms when the final pin was removed from her hair. His fingers spun circles through the tips of the fine golden silk as he breathed a heavy sigh, filled with both lament at the knowledge he would soon retire to his own room and content that for a few more minutes he could hold her close enough to kiss.

“When you return to your own chambers do you wish to stay in the same one, or perhaps another can be readied?” he spoke quietly as his fingers travelled like slow beads of water down her neck and met at the tip of her sternum.

Felicity watched as his eyes drunk in her skin, warmed by the nearby flames licking up the side of the fireplace and coloured by the soft glow from the nearby candle light.

“The same is fine,” she replied, matching his tone with one as equally soft.  
His eyes blinked just the once to show her words had been heard before his fingers returned to the lace of her bodice. He worked the finely twisted cord around his fingers, waiting for approval from her that came as a small, but noticeable nod, silken hair brushing against his fingertips.

He loosened the laces and slid the dress from her shoulders with his still but blazing hands. The deep red velvet dress dropped like a heavy weight to the floor, pooling around her feet. The cool whips of breeze against her naked skin slashed it with goose bumps for just a few moments until a warm swirl of fire-touched air sunk in.

With a softness that she had come to expect Oliver walked the calloused pads of his fingers down between her breasts. His thumb and forefinger pinched her budded nipples to incite in the honeyed gasp that fell from her parted lips.

“There is one more thing I must ask of you,” he whispered before he stooped to bathe her chest in the warmth of his tongue, stroking small, uneven lines across it

Felicity trembled more than she would ever imagine she could or she would ever allow herself to do again.  
“Yes my Lord?” the words soaked with arousal floated through the empty space ahead of her, Oliver’s head now nestled against the crook of her neck  
“I wish you to have your own personal guard.”  
She barely heard his words as he spoke them in misted heat against her damp skin.  
  
“And who might you wish my Lord?” her last word trailed off as his teeth nipped at the cords of her neck  
“The man who came to your rescue, do you know him?”  
She smiled, one he could not see, as she steadied her words, his distraction proving a worthy adversary.  
“No more than that night my Lord.”  
Her eyes lulled and her breath became rough and hitched as he bit down harder.  
  
“But would you feel safe with him?”  
Felicity worked though the words not said, Oliver knew much more than he was saying – or at least he thought he did – for the man she knew and had spent time studying would not so easily trust a man he did not know.

“If it is what you wish.”  
“It is.”  
“Then so be it,” she whispered as her arms wrapped around his shoulders

Oliver lifted her with ease and carried her across the room to the bed of linen and silk.

They lay down that night together, their bodies naked and entwined with the heat passing between them. His hands painted her like the brush strokes of an artist and Felicity gave herself over to it, even allowing her own hands to touch him with abandonment. That was an action not to gain knowledge or to find weakness but simply to enjoy, even if she knew that enjoyment would come at the price of her soul.

_Blackened though it was._

* * *

  
The mid-morning was brisk but pleasant as Felicity took a walk through the gardens on the western bank of Verdant’s island. Oliver had left his Chambers early that morning, well before the dawn, and she had not seen him since.

Cooper had met her outside the chambers once she had eaten and dressed. His orders to shadow her had come from John and the list of what he should not do had been quite substantive.

Once Felicity and Cooper had stepped outside another pair of timid eyes watched them. They pretended not to notice Roy skulking around at a distance, no doubt to parrot back to Oliver what he saw and heard.

“Your Lord knows,” Cooper spoke, his eyes gazing out into the distant shores, careful not to be seen to be lingering a gaze on Felicity – that being one of the first warnings John had issued.

_Do not allow your eyes to linger on her, Lord Oliver would find this most offensive._

Felicity sat on a stone bench and draped her hands most demurely across her lap of orange and gold brocade, careful to keep her eyes forward and her voice low with her lips barely moving to express each word.

“If he knew, we would both be headless,” Felicity remarked, the candour with which she spoke a result of the bloodshed her young eyes had witnessed and become so accustomed to, “but he does suspect something.”

Cooper shifted in his leather tunic as his hand instinctively touched the hilt of his broad sword to ensure it was close at hand.

“What do you think he knows?” he asked, kicking his battle-worn boots through the damp grass  
“I’m unsure, but at a time when his guard is most heightened he has sent you to me. I do not think that is a misstep,” Felicity opened the book she had kept tucked under her arm until now, the guise that she sat in the brisk air to read was not completely farfetched, although the fact she _could_ read had come as a startling surprise to Lady Moira.

“And what does your Lord make of us?”  
“Lovers, cohorts, relations…” Felicity trailed off, she was unsure what was simmering in Oliver’s mind, his eyes had become less readable lately, but there was _something_  
“Perhaps we should leave.”  
His words were met with silence and he had honestly expected nothing more.

“I will leave you to your book my lady,” Cooper assured as he stepped back, dipping his head in a soft salute  
“Keep your ear to the ground brother, these old walls…,” she spoke as she twisted her head to stare at the tall walls of Verdant Castle, “they have many secrets to tell.”

* * *

  
**[February 1151]**

The moon was full and radiant and the smell of the air was crisp and fragrant with the scent of the blooming lilacs and calla lilies that grew along the banks of the lake. The temperature was frigid, colder than most could stand and a light misting of rain filled the sky.

The water, which would have felt like ice to most, wrapped its stark cold arms around Felicity, forcing her senses to focus. What some may have considered tortuous, Felicity found refreshing. Set only a few degrees above a temperature that might cause one’s body to fall into a state of shock, the tightrope between comfort and pain was one that caused every sense to scream into sharp and clear focus.

Her ears heard every sound from frogs croaking or the whoosh of a bird in the distance taking off in flight to the snap of a twig underfoot.

He had been there for some time, watching her silhouette drop her robes and walk silently into the icy water, but it was not Cooper’s eye alone that she had drawn. A candle flickering from the window in Oliver’s chambers proved that.

Felicity had found herself back in her own chambers for two weeks now, the blood stain on the floor had been bleached and scrubbed away as best it could, but the wood still gave up its ghost in the small tinges of the grain. Oliver had promised he would rip up the entire floor if she requested it, but the reminder did not bother her.

He had not come to her that night or the three before. Oliver’s mind had been elsewhere after he had received word of fighting fractions drawing closer to the walls of Starling and her body had grown to miss him.

She swam closer to the light, her creamy skin basked in the glow of the white moon. Ripples of water shadowed her figure as the ground disappeared from under her feet. He was just a dark shadow in the window, his shoulders the width of the pane and his stance unflinching. She wished she could see his face, it had become grey and sullen of late and Felicity feared she had lost favour with him.

It was not for her to know that he had become fearful of his emotions, afraid that they blinded him and, as Oliver watched her form glide effortlessly through the calmed waters, he now knew that to be fact.

He had tried to keep his distant, to not visit her at night even though every fibre of his being longed to. The pads of his fingers felt calloused and feeble without the brush of her skin underneath them. His lips felt cracked and thirsty without the soft embrace of her kiss and his eyes ceased to see in bright and joyous colours when they had not danced across her naked skin.

In his heart he knew he had fallen for her.

While the taking of a wife was not forbidden by his cloak, to do so would cast Felicity into the fore. They would most certainly already _know_  about her, but to marry her put her in more harm than he was sure he could protect her from.

So that is why he stood, anchored to the ground with a candle almost melted to the end of its wick, poised in his hands, just watching her despite the yearning that he had to be beside her or to fall at her feet and beg for forgiveness of a past life.

Oliver just stood.  
Watching.  
Until the last flicker of light disappeared.

Felicity felt her heart jolt as the light from the window disappeared. Blackness was all that remained there. Perhaps his fire cracked and whipped flames but those did not illuminate the window as the candle once had.

The sharp cold pierced her skin like tiny knives as her focus cracked and her senses gave way to the pain of the frigid water. She gasped for breath as though her lungs had been bled dry. Her legs began to stiffen, no longer treading the water they once had.

“Swim to shore,” the order cut through her blackening vision at the same moment that air finally filled her lungs  
Cooper was standing on the banks of the lake, his familiar voice encouraging her closer.

“You Lord has grown tired of you, take you revenge tonight or let us leave before dawn breaks” he spoke, his tone hushed but enough to carry the few feet to where Felicity treaded water  
“I must find the truth,” Felicity replied, her voice strained  
“He will not offer you that, and yet you offer him so much.”  
She knew about which Cooper spoke. Felicity had offered her body willingly and perhaps her heart mistakenly.  
“How much of you will you allow him to take?”  
“Everything if I must,” Felicity replied, she had never foreseen a return to the Brotherhood once Oliver’s blood tipped her blade.  
She had gone outside of their creeds and they would not welcome her back.

The sound of grinding metal echoing through the still night stilled their conversation immediately.  
“Follow me no more tonight brother,” she whispered as Cooper disappeared into the shadows

The door with no handle to the outside swung open onto the rocky banks of the second, smaller island where the old castle was built and a tall, bulky figure appeared, illuminated by a small oil lamp.

“Is it not like ice?” Oliver asked as he stepped out into the night  
“Much colder than I had thought it, my Lord,” Felicity replied, her breath sending a white chimney of smoke ahead of her with her voice shaky and staggered  
“Come,” he requested as his hand beckoned her near  
“My Lord, I am without clothing, permit me to swim across to the other bank to find it?”  
Oliver placed the lamp on the group and shrugged his heavy cloak from his shoulders.  
“You can wear this and I will send someone to collect your clothes.”

Felicity swam a little closer until her feet found the ground and then she walked, her body slowly emerging from the water, towards him.

Her hair had been piled atop her head, but loose strands of it were now darkened by water. Her body was curtained in chill-bumps, masked by tiny beads of water that weaved paths down her body.

The night air stuck to her skin and her nipples tightened as her lips fell open in a gasp. Oliver could not tear his eyes from her body, jealous of the water that caressed and touched her. His throat tightened and his breath constricted as the moonlight mixed with the warm glow of the nearby lamp, danced seductive fingers across her naked skin.

She stopped a barely a foot from him and he could hear her breathing and study her chest rising and falling with each breath she took. He had seen her naked before, relished in the way her body looked, but tonight he saw it with fresh eyes as though it was the first time.

Wordlessly he wrapped his cloak around her, enjoying for just a moment the sight of it swallowing her body so completely.  
“Wait here a moment, I will clear the passage so that no man will see you,” he whispered as his fingers wrapped their way through loose tresses of hair  
Felicity nodded as Oliver disappeared back inside the castle walls.

She watched as Cooper came out from his hiding place and stood like a silent beacon on the shore opposite where she stood now.

She did not need to see his face to be able to read the expression he would be wearing. There was little he was able to keep from her.  
“Follow me no more brother,” she whispered, unsure if her words would reach him or not

“Your path is clear,” Oliver assured as he reached out a hand for her to take  
She took with only a moment’s hesitation and Oliver hurried her inside.

He pulled the heavy door closed behind him and the air fell stagnant and old as they moved through the narrow halls.  
“What is this place?” Felicity asked as her fingers touched the moss-lined walls, they were damp and unkempt.  
“If the main castle is overrun the Gloriette is built to house those it must, these passages are hidden and only a few know of them,” he explained  
Drips of condensation fell to the limestone floor which was layered with salt crystals for grip.

“Where do they lead?”  
Oliver stopped at a branch of the passage and pointed down it, “that leads to cells.”  
“You have a prison here?”  
“Yes.”  
Oliver had decided that if he wished her to love him back, she would need to know the truth. Whatever question she asked, no matter the light it painted him in, he would give her only the truth.

“And do you torture people here, away from the eyes of those who struggle to keep law?”  
Felicity knew the answer from the look in his eyes, but she was only interested in what his lips would say.  
_Would they tell the truth? Or would the sell deceit?_

“Yes, I have,” his chin dropped and his brow grew heavy.  
When he looked up, he expected her gone, but she was not and her hand was still folded into his.  
“Your hands, are they stained?” Felicity spoke her question with an unwavering voice, her eyes watching the shadows as they leaked across his skin  
“Yes.”  
“With innocents?”  
Oliver took a sharp intake of stagnant air, the question haunted him but the answer even more so.  
“Yes.”  
“Why?”  
His lips shook and his eyes glassed with tears of regret.  
“I took my orders.”

“From who?” Felicity asked, her voice now beginning to tremble  
“I will show you,” he whispered, his voice now barely recognisable from the gruff on that had so often whispered words of endearment into her ears

They continued down the passage in silence, distant voices could be heard echoing off the walls, but Felicity could not decipher any words they spoke.

Oliver stopped beside a ladder fastened to the wall that lead up some distance.  
“Are you able to climb?” he asked softly as he tugged his cloak tighter around her body  
Felicity nodded as she starred up at the climb and wrapped her hands around the first rung within her reach.

She took the first step and then the second before Oliver shadowed her, the lower part of her body protected by the upper half of his.

When they reached the top Oliver reached up and pushed open the trap door just above their heads.

Her eyes adjusted to the bright lamps within the small room as they were much brighter than the oil lamp Oliver had left at the bottom of the ladder.

Felicity took the final steps to find herself in the room Oliver had kept her from for so long. She heard him close the trap door with a heavy thud and she felt his presence behind her, but unwilling to touch her.

“This is the small room off your chambers?”  
“Yes,” he replied, “it is.”  
“Why do you bring me here?”  
Oliver walked around her, taking her attention and drawing it towards walls she had never been able to see before.

Paraphernalia emblazoned with the Templar crest hung from the wall and imagery of brutal deaths handed out by those that sought to fight against the freedoms of man hung as paintings of heretics burned at the stake.

Decades of proud warfare played out ahead of Felicity; maps of battle lines and unused relics of war – too much for her to completely appreciate.

He was baring his soul; and yet she could not understand why.

“I have sworn an oath to the Templar Order, as did my father and his father before. Generations of us have been beheld to its will,” Oliver’s hand trembled as he spoke, while it was no secret in itself, the true scope of it – laid now before Felicity – had been something only a trusted few had ever known.

“But you already knew that, did you not?” he asked with trepidation  
“My Lord?”  
“You know who I am and now you know what I have done.”

Oliver dropped to his knees with his head slung low as his hands reached for her. She stepped closer and Oliver sunk into her, his chest pressed against her legs as his arms coiled up towards her waist.  
“Forgive me,” he whispered, trembled and broken  
Felicity felt the damp of his tears against her skin as she struggled to stay upright. Her mind was a adrift with questions she could find no answers for.

“For what are you asking forgiveness my Lord?”  
“Years back, when my father still held some strength and I was but a boy of eleven at his side, we were given the order to decimate a village along the banks of the River Thames, they had harboured an Assassin who had taken the life of a Grand Master,” he began as Felicity stayed still, only a hand gently combed through his hair

“When most men had fallen by the sword I thought we would leave, but we were told there was not to be a single person to be left breathing,” Oliver eyes looked up at her, but he could not imagine watching the next part of his tale cause pain to blemish her expression.

“Every soul left alive was rounded up and put inside an old barn.”  
Felicity held back her gasp. She knew the story he was telling her, she had been only a child when her father had taken her with him.

Blüdhaven was the town.  
They had kept them both safe while her father’s wounds healed.  
She had led him into the Chiltern Hills a few hours before… _before the night sky had become orange with the sight of flames and the once-still air had become crowded with the screams of souls that could not be saved._

She had been 7.  
She had screamed into the darkness.  
Begged her father to let her go to them.  
To let her try save them as they had saved him.  
Noah had held her back for what seemed like hours, _until the night stopped screaming._

“Every person died that night, men, women, children…” Oliver sobbed, “and I watched and I did _nothing_.”  
“You were only a child,” Felicity whispered, mirroring words similar to those her father had told her

 _You are only a child Felicity, you cannot save them._  
_I need to try_ she had cried back at him  
_There will be more chances for saving_

“I did _nothing_ ,” Oliver repeated, quaking  
“Your sins are not mine to forgive Oliver,” she whispered  
They had both been children, brought into worlds they could not yet control.

“And yet they may ask it of me again.”  
Felicity knelt down in front of him, her hands sunk around his jaw, her eyes moist with tears of her own memories of that night.  
“There will be no forgiveness for that,” she breathed, locking her eyes with his own  
“I know,” Oliver wept  
“No one can own your soul Oliver, it is yours to do with as you wish.”

There was nothing to be gained by it and no chess move playing in her head when her tear-stained lips pressed a trembled kiss to the corner of his mouth.  
“You must leave me,” Oliver hushed, his lips dancing the words against her cheek, “I fight a battle I won’t win against people who will show you no mercy.”

Felicity stood, dragging Oliver up behind her. His shoulders slumped, this burden of guilt heavy atop them.

“No,” she spoke like a breath of warm again against his lips, “I wish to stay.”  
Oliver embraced her, pressing her head to his heart, the heavy beating of it like a drum to her ears.  
“Come, with me…” his voice faded to silence as he walked her through another door and into his chambers, dimly lit only by the glow from the fire.

Her bare feet walked a mere step behind him as he led her to the embedding hearth. The heat instantly enveloped her as her feet sunk into the soft bear skin rug underfoot. Slipping a hand inside the cloak that hid her naked body, Oliver pulled a pendant necklace from a hidden pocket.

A flawless white-blue diamond hung like a teardrop from a chain of braided gold and sapphires. Even in dim light it looked exquisite. Countless hours spent shaving the gold that clawed at the diamond and moulding it into something undeniably stunning. Felicity had seen nothing quite like it.

Her eyes questioned him as he laid the great charm in the palm of his hand.  
“I had it designed after your eyes. The diamond is blue, but its colour is changed by the light it reflects, just like the blue of your eyes changes with each mood you take. The white tone of enjoyment, the deep blue of passion and the paled grey of sadness that you don’t speak of. I have come to know and love them all,” Oliver breathed, his free hand stroking the side of her cheek

“My Lord, such a gift…”  
“Does not even amount to half what you have given me.”  
Felicity looked way, the stab on her heart unlike anything she had ever known.  
“I have given you nothing,” she sighed, breathless and choked  
“You have given me hope.”

“May I?” he asked as he held the necklace near her neck  
Felicity lifted waves of lose hair as she turned her back to him.

Slowly Oliver wrapped the pendant around her, letting it drop between her breasts, before he clasped the chain closed and sealed it with the softest of kisses. Felicity turned back to face him, her eyes wet with fresh tears.

Oliver’s fingers traced the path of the chain against her ivory skin, now warmed by the embrace of the fire beside them. He touched no further than the cloak would allow before he walked a finger back up, skating it under her chin to tip her head back.

“If you leave tonight, it is yours to take,” he whispered  
“And if I stay tonight?”  
“Then I am yours to take also.”  
She smiled at the way his lips softened.

Tonight she _needed_ nothing from him.  
Tonight she _wanted_ everything.

Felicity knelt down on the thick brown rug of bear fur with Oliver’s cloak spread out around her like a halo. She gestured him to sit down opposite her and without complaint or question he did with his legs bent beside him and a large hand of fingers dispersed though the fur.

Rising up on her knees, Felicity’s fingers shook in the air between them until they reached the lace of his shirt. Slowly she pulled it loose until the neck of it hung wide enough for his head to pass through. Her hands dropped to grip the hem of the cotton shirt. She lifted it up as his arms moved to accommodate and his back stooped enough to let her pull it free from his body.

Dropping it carelessly to the side of them her fingers danced lines across his chest, across wounds and muscles that twitched under her attention. His eyes lulled closed, swept up in the trance of her fingers weaving so sensually across his naked chest. Her hands fell away, instead crawling up the edges of his cloak until they reached its fastening.

She undid it and let the heavy fabric drop from her narrow shoulders, leaving her naked before him, his necklace hung between her rounded and heaving breasts.

Felicity ran her fingers through his hair, eliciting starved moans from deep within his chest. His head fell between her breasts as the enchanting scent of her played against his senses. Oliver kissed her chest, unable to hold himself back from it a minute longer. Her back arched into it, a sweeping and honeyed plea dripping from her desperate lips.

The diamond chilled against his cheek as his tongue ran a path along the curve of her breast. His hands clutched at her back, desperate to bring her body closer so that not even air could pass between them.  
  
Guttural sounds stirred from inside him, breaking from his lips like strangled rasps of air. His craving for her skin took hold of his ever sense as his salacious mind replayed every fantasy that had ever crossed his mind with her, but as he listened to the mellow thump of her heart beat and the way her body keened against his, Oliver was desperate to let this moment last until the morning set upon them.  
  
They lay down together on the warm, soft fur. Her body creamy white against its dark brown tones. His fingers traced her body, taking their time to enjoy the way her body moved underneath his touch. Alongside the chain they dragged down her chest, around the curve of her breast, sinking ever closer to her budded nipple. His thumb swarmed it, curling around in it lingered circles before he lightly pinched it. Felicity gasped at the contact as her hips bucked closer to him, desperate to settle the need simmering inside her.  
  
Minutes ran by as Oliver only allowed his hands to touch her until her pleas for something more finally found his mouth dropped to her chest. She shifted underneath him, heavy breaths racked her chest, up, down, in, out. Her lips bled with arousal and her cheeks pinked with lust that fanned down like a scarlet blush down her body.  
  
His kisses sank into her warm skin as they hopped a path down her body. His mouth embraced her breast, sucking it deeply inside as his tongue flicked lasciviously over her sensitive nipple.

Her fingers fanned through his hair and wrapped around strands of it, tugging them excitedly when his teeth grazed her nipple.

Hands explored in quick strokes and lingered swirls, learning one another like to do so meant their lives.

Time stretched for them as his mouth engulfed her other breast, assaulting it with the same pleasured strokes of his tongue and nips of his teeth.

His cock hardened beneath his trousers as Felicity tore them down his legs. Her walls ached to be filled with him and to feel each inch that he would take her down his shaft.

She readied his cock with strong and stimulating pumps before her fingers marred the underside with scratches that made Oliver euphoric with wicked pleasure.

Felicity tugged him closer by his length as she slid it delicately between her wet folds. The sensual rhythm took them to heights of awakening, their nerves tipped at the precipice of intoxication.

His fingers fisted into the rug, crushing it either side of her shoulders as her name came out like thin and throaty pleas. Felicity tipped her chin up, capturing his lips and her name as her hand guided him to her entrance, hovering it there for just a moment until she lifted her hips and took him, breathlessly, inside her.

Oliver felt her body crushing in around tip, rolling over the head of his cock with a grip that made his balls thrum. He threaded himself deeper as their tongues battered and danced with each other, crossing the lines between warfare and art more tines than one.

His assent inside her was slow as he took his time to feel each inch, more tighter and delicious than the first; and she took her time to enjoy the feeling of expanding around him, her body stretching to form so perfectly to accommodate him.

When all but the last inch was buried within her, Oliver lay still above her, his lips pecking softly against hers as he watched her eyes turned a deep shade of blue – passion, with streaks of orange dancing like fireflies within them.

Felicity let her hands cup his face as her eyes finally saw his in all their impurity and honesty for the first time.

And as he thrust that last inch inside her like the most darkest of pleasant deaths, Felicity finally realised she was beginning to love the man that she had sworn to hate.

A single, new tear slipped from her eye before Oliver caught it with his lips.  
“Am I hurting you?” he whispered with husky threads  
“No,” she quavered as her hips rocked against him, urging him to continue

His cock withdrew a few inches, soaked in her arousal, before her plummeted back inwards, pushing her just a fraction up the rug. Back and forth he continued as their low breaths evolved into loud pants and desperate cries.

The base of his cock slid against her heat, sparking her sensitive clit to fist and ball into a pearl of ardent pleasure. She was so close to exploding around him that she dare not deny herself much longer lest it tear a hole across her tightly wound core.

Still deeper and faster he took her, their lips kissing and missing, desperate to touch something of the other’s face.

“Please let me feel you come,” Oliver pleaded, his voice choked as he knew himself to be within reach if his own gratification  
Felicity didn’t argue this time as her satisfaction overtook her and her warm, slick juices flowed down his embedded cock. Her walls stroked him, caving as her orgasm rolled through her body. Her breasts swelled and her nipples darkened. Her lips fell open and his name fell from inside them, “Oliver,” she cried out.

Before his mind fogged with his impending orgasm, Oliver withdrew and seconds later ropes of sticky seed released over her mound and naval, glistened against her sweat glossed skin.

After he fell, his body expended and worn, beside her, Felicity took his cock in her hands and eased him through it as his fingers stroked inside her. His cock dripped against her hand and thigh as his fingers bathed in her juices.

His eyes watched her as her whole face was aglow.  
“I love you,” he spoke, unashamed by it  
“I know,” she whispered back  
And that was enough for him.

 **_Catch me as I fall_ **  
**_Say you're here and it's all over now_ **  
**_Speaking to the atmosphere_ **  
**_No one's here and I fall into myself_ **

**_This truth drives me_ **  
**_Into madness_ **  
**_I know I can stop the pain_ **  
**_If I will it all away_ **

  
Time lapsed between them, their bodies a weave of twisted limbs and shared breaths as her head lay on his chest, memorising the sound of it beating, and his arm embraced her, fearful if he gave an inch that she just might leave his side.

His cloak covered them both as they lay entwined on the rug, but it slipped down his chest when, as he feared, Felicity sat up and clutched the cloak across her naked body.  
“Lie back down,” Oliver urged as his fingers slalomed down her spine.  
“I should return to my chambers,” Felicity replied as she tousled a hand through her hair, the tips of it now dried from the fire.

“Stay the night,” Oliver spoke, it was not a question nor did his tone hold any uncertainty as to his request.

“That would be quite the scandal my Lord,” Felicity smiled as she rested her head contentedly on her shoulder with her eyes tipped back towards him.  
“Then let it be so.”

Felicity laughed, a sweet chorus of a honeyed chortle, as she stood up, stealing the cloak completely and leaving Oliver naked, and most unashamed, on the bear-skin.

“Am I not the Lord here?” Oliver lamented as he sat up, still without attempted to hide his bare form  
“You know that you are _my Lord_ ,” she spoke with a silvered tongue and a seductive wink as she dropped Oliver's cloak and slipped on his discarded shirt

It draped around her much like a night shirt only it skimmed just above her knees rather than the floor. Oliver looked on most aroused by it as he smacked his lips together and licked across them.

“Then I demand you stay,” he ordered, though his tone was not forceful and his eyes showed a charming smile  
“You would demand it of me?” she quipped as she walked towards him, the light making his shirt virtually see-through  
“Yes, will you relent?”

Felicity stood above him, either side of one of his muscular thighs. She lifted her foot and stroked it along his semi-hard cock while a smile grew across her swollen lips.

“Relent, my Lord?” she smirked as she twisted her foot around the base of his cock eliciting a guttural grow to reverberate in the space between them  
“Relent, my lady, give in, kneel…”  
“Kneel you say?” she whispered and knelt down, lowering her body until her warm heat brushed against his taunt thigh and her weight anchored his leg there

Oliver’s eyes danced across her chest before his hands reached out and slid his shirt further up her smooth legs.

Felicity wove a finger around the tip of his cock, smiling as it reacted with a twitch to the weightless touch. Oliver clenched his thigh, the movement spreading Felicity open and skimming against her budded clit.

Felicity pressed her lips together as she let out a smoky sigh that made Oliver’s cock stiffen in the palm of her hand.

She leaned her body forward, striking her delicate sex against his ridged thigh once more, before her lips touched the glistening head of his cock, dripping with his arousal. She feathered light kisses against it making Oliver grip into her thighs as his head rolled back.

“Is this what you meant by kneel my Lord?” she chided as her tongue swept over the slit  
“Fel..iss…icty,” he rasped, unable to form any more words than that as she enveloped his throbbing cock with her warm, wet mouth.

Curses of sacrilege fell from his lips in strangled gasps as she moved her mouth up and down his long and thick shaft. His skin tasted of sweetened-salt as her tongue batted with the tip before licking the underside of his shaft while her mouth devoured him.

She listened to the words coming like breathy and tremulous waves of stunted sentences as she began to rock her pelvis back and forth, skating her folds against his leg and provoking her own growled please of satisfaction which vibrated against his cock.

Oliver was close, unbelievably close.  
Every muscle below his waist felt rigid and every muscle above felt a tightening that pulled into his core.

Her mouth was relentless, her tongue engaging in the most erotic sword play he had ever encountered, all while she found her own pleasure, rubbing herself up and down his leg, his taunt muscle more than happy to oblige and heighten with contractions and releases.

His hands hand moved up her body, floating under the shirt she wore to cup and caress her breasts before one dove to the side, blindly seeking for the cloth he had earlier used to wipe them both clean.

He was going to come.

He started to pull back from her, preparing himself to finish in the cloth his hand found, but as he lifted it towards her, Felicity slapped it away and slammed his wrist to the ground, locking her hand around it.

Thick threads of release filled her mouth as she swallowed without hesitation, Oliver looked on, marvelled, as she continued sucking him off, milking every last drop from inside him. His balls shook and his eyes dropped closed as he relished the slowing of her lips until they became no more than soft kisses against his head.

The hand holding his wrist drew back and plucked the cloth from his fingers as Felicity pulled away, dropping his spent cock from her hold.

Her tongue licked across both lips, once, twice and a third time as Oliver watched transfixed, before she touched the cloth to the very edges of her mouth, tapping them like a lady would after a meal.

“Let there be scandal then, my Lord,” she smiled

 

* * *

 

Days had swept by as the temperatures began to climb. Oliver seemed less listless and he had not spent a night alone in his chambers since the night on the rug beside the fire side. Thea had commented on how truly lovely it was to see him smile once more and while she had asked what it was that had turned him quite so cheery, Oliver offered her nothing but a grin and a wink.

Felicity however was wearing a façade of joy, her body at odds with her mind each night she lay beside Oliver. How easy it would be to take his life as he slept, peaceful and at ease beside her, his hand cupped to her breast, her body still blushed from his attentions.

But each time she watched him, her own rest stolen from her, she saw a reflection of her own life.

A child trapped under the mantel of their father.

It was early evening, but before the sun had begun to set, when Oliver found himself standing before his father’s bed, about to tell him the news that he had kept to himself for some time now, hoping that an answer would present itself, only none ever did.

“Come closer,” Robert choked, his voice stretched and cracked, both with failing health and the heavy burden of his past  
Oliver's cloak brushed across the dusty wooden floor as slithers of white light pierced through gaps in the boards of wood covering the once impressive windows.

His air was stale and the room kept dark.  
Oliver reached the imposing bed and knelt down alongside his father as though he was a young child once more seeking guidance in a world Oliver could not navigate.  
“I failed father,” he whispered as he laid the ring into Robert's pale and wilted palm

Robert's head sunk deeper into his crimson pillow as a troubled and drawn breath escaped his cracked lips.

There were still a few secrets he held, even as he lay here, broken and nearing the end of his life, there were still a few truths his son did not know... could not know. The truth of them was too heavy a burden for Oliver to carry.

“The man you asked me to find, he's dead,” Oliver spoke with a thin voice  
“There is another,” Robert coughed, strained and scratched

Oliver watched his father as he pressed the ring back into Oliver's hand, clawing his fingers to close Oliver's fist.  
“There was no one else, no one we can trust,” Oliver lamented

Robert shook a trembled finger in the air.  
“A child,” he rasped  
Oliver shook his head as his chin dropped to his chest. His father's mind perhaps was failing together with his health.

“Younger than you by only a few years.”  
The shake of Oliver's head became more pronounced.  
He had accompanied his father all those years ago, there was no child.  
“He kept the child hidden, but you must find them, offer this ring.”

Oliver sighed, he had listened to every fruitless instruction his father had given him, to the point where his brow grew weary at the thought of yet more.

“You must leave tonight,” Robert continued, nodding to himself, for a brief moment shedding his frailty  
“Father, I cannot. I will send...”  
“No!” Robert interrupted, the ferocity of his voice causing him to gasp for air moments after, “ _you_ must go.”  
“I do not even _know_ who you are asking me to find,” Oliver argued  
“If what you say is true and Noah Kuttler is dead, his child will find you.”

Oliver knew to argue further would be pointless, he would be making the journey inland to Havenrock regardless.  
“I will leave before dawn,” he agreed, albeit under duress  
“And your mother?”  
“Will know nothing.”

Robert nodded, assured the secret was well kept.  
“I do not understand why we keep this from...”  
His father's fingers clutching at his wrist stole his final word.

“Trust no one.”  
Oliver placated his father with a nod. Perhaps the old man's wits were thinning.  
“Find the child.”  
Oliver stood as he heard the rattle of the chamber door.  
“Be well father,” he offered as he slipped the ring into a small hidden pocket in the lining of his cloak.

Robert simply nodded before the door creaked open and Moira Queen walked into the room.  
“Oliver, I didn’t realise you were here,” she remarked as she smoothed her palms down the heavy draped dress.  
“Just bidding father a good night's rest before I leave tomorrow,” Oliver replied  
“To where are you travelling?”  
“Bristol,” he lied, knowing the much longer journey afforded him more time for his search, “allies there have called for a meeting.”

“I heard of no such meeting.”  
“Why would you dear mother,” Oliver smiled as he placed a genuine kiss against her chilled cheek, instantly noticing how much cooler her skin was to Felicity's, “these are things you need not worry about.”

Moira nodded slowly as she walked Oliver to the chamber door.  
“Goodnight son.”  
“Goodnight.”

 

* * *

**[March 1151]**

It had been two weeks since Oliver had left without much of a word in the early hours of the morning. He had kissed Felicity on the forehead and swore that he would return as soon as he could, leaving with only John and Roy riding alongside him.

As the days turned to a week which turned into two, Cooper became agitated at the time they sat idle here and as they walked through the gardens alone that morning his thinning patience was becoming more vivid.

“You have found nothing, we have wasted away here,” he growled, safe from prying eyes behind the tall hedges  
“There is more to be found here, more he wishes to tell me,” Felicity replied, she could understand Cooper’s agitation but she grew weary of it all the same.  
“You are nothing more than a prize to him,” Cooper spat as his finger tapped the jewel that hung around her neck, “a whore for him to keep in his chambers.”

Felicity’s hand struck the side of Cooper’s face but he didn’t flinch. She was unsure what she found more unsettling, that he would say such a thing or that such a thing could be true.

“Do you love him?” he asked, spitting blood from his mouth  
“Of course not,” she replied, knots twisted in her stomach from the lie  
“Then take your revenge or let us leave this place.”

Cooper smoothed open her palm and placed a thin blade inside it.  
“Kill Robert Queen, his death is deserved.”

Cooper walked away before she could reply as she stood looking down at the blade in her hand.

 _A father, for a father._  
_Pater._

She let her eyes lull closed as she heard Cooper’s accusation repeat in her head.  
_Do you love him?_  
_His prize to keep…_

The time had come.  
Tonight Robert Queen would die.  
Tomorrow, before dawn broke, she would be gone.

 

* * *

**[That Night]**

The moon hung low that night and hidden behind ominous clouds that puffed like pillows across the midnight-blue sky.

The sunset had been painted in vibrant hues of orange and red, as though the sky knew that death would come to Verdant tonight.

Felicity found her way into the estate house at the thickest point of night, using passages Thea had once told her about playing in as a child. Without a sound she moved through the house and into Robert’s room.

Her cowl was drawn over her face, her fine clothes now replaced with her assassin garb that she had kept secreted away in the floorboards of the tiny house across the shores. The blade Cooper had given her that morning was now replaced with her hidden blade, sheathed into her leather gauntlet.

She hung in the shadows watching the bed and counting the breaths the old stale man took.

After she left this room, he would take no more.

“Have you come to kill me assassin?” Robert asked, his eyes affixed to the shadowed figure Felicity cast in the room  
“You know what awaits you, yet you do not cry out?”  
“What would the point be?” he paused to wheeze through a lumbered breath, “my death is well deserved.”  
“Then you would embrace it?” she whispered as she drew out the hidden blade from the bound leather gauntlet.

Felicity stepped forward, her face still hidden by the hang of her cowl.

“You are still a child, daughter,” he beckoned her closer but she stayed her position, “how many lives have been taken by your hands?”  
“Enough.”  
“Then you are the right one”  
He nodded slowly as his eyes draped closed, peaceful at the prospect of death.

“What do you mean?”  
“I knew you would come,” again he ushered her closer and this time she took a step closer to the bed where he lay, with barely a twitch of movement, “he spoke of you, although I had not thought you might be a daughter.”  
“Who did?”  
“Your father.”

Felicity moved like the wind, her blade now against his wrinkled and worn throat, their eyes locked, unblinking.

“What did you know about my father?”  
“Noah was a good man, he wanted only…”

Robert’s words ceased as his eyes tracked to the door, at the exact time Felicity heard it too.  
“Someone is coming,” he croaked, “take your leave, they cannot find you here.”

“Tell me what you know,” Felicity hissed, unable to tear herself away, she needed to know, she needed the truth  
“He wanted the same for you.”  
She shook her head, confused by his piecemeal words.

“What? What did he want?”  
“Peace,” the old man’s eyes met with hers, they were eyes not unlike her father’s, marbles of blue that hid rivers of pain and mountains of regret, “Now go, out through the other room, you will find a trap door in the floor that will take you down between the walls and out through the cellar.”

Felicity’s face twisted in agony at the choice before her, but when she drew back her blade she realised much more than blood, she wanted answers, and for those she needed Robert Queen alive.

She ducked into the other room, leaving the door slightly ajar as the darkness surrounded her. She head footsteps entering the room and through the crack in the door she saw a silhouette hovering at the side of the bed.

Although she could not see their face, they were tall and slender, _a woman perhaps?_  
All question was removed when they spoke.

“My love,” Moira spoke as she leaned down to stare at the face of her once fearsome husband, now ravaged by time and circumstance.

Felicity could not hear Robert’s words, despite how carefully she honed her ears towards them.

Moira pressed a kiss to his forehead before she drew something out from the shadow of her dress.  
“It is time,” she spoke coldly and she jammed the dagger into his heart, impaling him to the bed.

Felicity recoiled, a hand clasped to her mouth to stifle her visible shock.

The sky had not been wrong tonight.

Death had come once more.


	11. Mantle

 

Felicity paced the floor of her chambers while Cooper sat on a stool in the corner of the shadows, scuffing his heavy shoes on the spot as his head lay between his palms.  
“And you’re sure of what you saw?”  
“Yes,” Felicity huffed indignantly, of course she was sure – sure she saw Lady Moira plunge a blade into her husband’s chest.

Felicity had escaped the house as deftly as she could, expecting that the entire Castle grounds would soon be lit up as they searched for someone to blame.

Only that didn’t happen.  
No alarm was sounded.  
No chaos ensued.  
_Nothing_.

“Then why has nothing come of it?” Cooper asked in a hushed and gruff tone  
“I don’t know,” Felicity sighed, _it made no sense_.

“And why would she?”  
Felicity scratched her nails across her scalp. _She was missing something_ , she knew it – but as for what, she had no idea.  
“I don’t know, though I imagine his death must benefit her in some way,” Felicity’s brow furrowed as she spoke.

She had entered Verdant’s gates to find the truth, but perhaps she had come with one already embedded in her mind to the point that she was unable to focus on anything else.

“Did the old man offer you anything?”  
Felicity let her memory of the whispered words Robert spoke sit on the edge of her tongue as she turned the wheels inside her head.

 _Why had she come here?_  
_…Here_  
“How did you know?” she asked with a hitched breath of reservation in her throat, he was her brother and yet she was about to call him into question.  
“How did I know _what_?” Cooper replied, his voice threaded with annoyance because even though his words said otherwise, Cooper knew exactly what she was asking, he simply wanted the words to come from her mouth.

“You told me the execution had come from within these walls, how did you know?” she asked, finally levelling the accusation at his feet.  
“You wanted a name,” Cooper shot back.  
“I wanted the truth.”  
“I gave you what I knew, what I had heard. Now you think that false?”

She could hear the agitation in his voice but she couldn’t blame him for it. Had he have questioned her in like manner she would already have a blade pressed to his throat.

 _None of this made sense._  
Felicity wasn’t even sure what she was asking. While she had found her way here because of what Cooper had told her, she stayed because her gut told her there was something here to be found.

Robert Queen knowing her father proved that.

“Forgive me brother,” she revoked, her voice just a little above a whisper  
Verdant’s walls held secrets, Felicity just didn’t know what ones.

The man she thought a monster had bared his soul.  
The child sheltered by the walls had embraced her as a sister.

 _And yet…_ the ties were there, their paths had crossed once before and an old man died with secrets.

Felicity had become blinded by her quest for revenge that she stared at a painting of stars and only saw the moon.

_Not anymore._

* * *

  
When morning broke, the news spread through the castle like a game of whispers, Lord Queen, the Earl of Starling, was dead.

This came as no surprise to Felicity, but the cited manner of his death did – silently and peacefully in the night.

His body was wrapped in fine strips of linen before the sun had fully risen as he was to lie in state within the home, shrouded in white and looked over by a mass of flickering candles, each one said to be a prayer for his soul.

Felicity lit three at the entrance of the Grand Hall – one for her father, one for her mother and the last one for herself. Death was inevitable,

It was mid-afternoon when Felicity took a quiet walk with Thea at her request.  
“I sat a few hours with father this morning, I cannot believe he is no longer with this world?” Thea spoke, her pale complexion looking more thin than normal, the colour all but trained from her natural rosy cheeks.

“I know you didn’t know him,” she continued as they walked a slow path towards the banks of the lake, “but I should imagine he would have liked you.”  
Felicity smiled astutely, though her lips said nothing.

“Oliver should have introduced you,” she continued as she stopped walking to lean against the pedestal of a bronze statute, “but then Oliver does like to keep his secrets.”

“Thea, are you well?” Felicity asked as she scrutinized Thea’s pale young face  
“I seem to have worn myself out, perhaps it’s the grief or…”  
Thea never finished her sentence before she crumpled, so near hitting the ground before Felicity caught her and lowered her slowly.

Felicity checked Thea was breathing as she laid her head into the gold-embellished skirt of Felicity’s forest green Cote. Cooper rushed to her side, taking a knee beside Felicity.  
“Fetch her some water and some bread,” Felicity instructed before Cooper dutifully did just so.

Thea started to come to moments later, her eyes traversing the gardens as she struggled to make sense of her surroundings.  
“You fainted,” Felicity spoke quietly as Thea slowly started to sit up, although she only made it half way before her head became much too heavy.

“Lie back down,” Felicity hummed as she gently straightened the fabric of her Cote, smoothing it down in preparation, “someone will be back shortly with some food and water.”  
“I will take just the water,” Thea insisted as she nestled her head into Felicity’s lap

Felicity’s finger’s trickled through the loose strands of Thea’s hair, it did seem so untenable that she was born from a mother who had slain so easily. _Perhaps Oliver had done well to keep much from her._

“I know you grieve for your father, but you should eat something for strength.”  
“While I do grieve ever so much for him, that’s not why I’m to take only the water,” Thea sighed listless, “mother says I have become much too large.”

Felicity pursed her lips closed to stop herself from speaking out of turn, while the last few months had seen the young wisp of a thing grow more shapely, Thea was hardly large.

“She’s told the kitchen staff not to feed me you know?” Thea bemoaned as she twisted her body so that her eyes now looked skyward.

Cooper approached with a skin bottle of water and half a loaf of bread.  
“We won’t tell your mother then,” Felicity smiled as she handed a famished looking Thea both the bread and water

“It’s no surprise my bother loves you,” Thea spoke idly as she sat up and greedily ate the bread  
The words hung like a noose around Felicity and she could feel the heat of Cooper’s stare before he stepped away.

“I wonder if you might come with me tonight to farewell him, perhaps for Oliver?” she asked with threads of trepidation shaking her thin voice, “when the moon is at the highest point.”  
  
“They will set the funeral pyre alight without Oliver having returned?” Felicity asked, troubled.

That there would be no lavish funeral procession through the streets and no burial to be watched over by many came as a surprise to Felicity.

It was customary for a body to lie in state for at least a few days while those away took time to travel back and yet, under the guise of some wish that no one but herself was privy to, Moira had begun preparations to burn his remains upon a pyre well before Oliver could return.  
  
“Mother says father would have wanted it that way, but poor Oliver,” Thea lamented, “he will be most upset.”

“Stay a while here and finish your bread,” Felicity spoke kindly as she stood from the manicured ground, “my man servant will help you back to your room should you need it.”  
“Where are you going?” Thea asked as Cooper’s eyes repeated the same question  
“Eat, drink,” Felicity answered simply before she walked away.

* * *

  
Felicity found Lady Moira absconded in a room off the Grand Hall, surrounded by fine cloaks to be placed as a sign of status over Robert’s shrouded body.

“Will you not wait for Oliver’s return?” Felicity asked without the invitation to speak  
Moira turned her attention from the housemaid holding fine pieces of jewellery to stare with narrowed eyes across at Felicity.

“This one,” Moira continued, turning her attention back to the jewellery, “and have him cloaked in the red.”  
The three servants nodded in succession before they scurried from the room.

Felicity soon felt the heated stare of Moira Queen, it was no doubt one that had made many a person crumble, but Felicity withstood it with a half turned smile at the crease of her lips. If Moira expected her to cower, she was to be sadly disappointed.

“My husband’s passing on from this life to the next is a family matter, unless there is something I am unaware of, you are not of this family,” Moira said pointedly as she touched an outstretched fingers along the high back of a reading chair, “this is of no concern to you.”

“Perhaps it would concern your son though,” Felicity retorted, stiffening her shoulders as she spoke.  
While her words would be tapered there would be little respect shown behind them.

“You share a bed with him when he behests and you think that gives you a right to speak?” Moira spat, her well-guarded decorum cracking much to Felicity’s amusement.

Perhaps the stoic Lady Moira could be rattled after all.

“And he _behests_ me most frequently,” Felicity smiled as she took a step forward, “sometimes I behest him and he kneels before me.”  
Her voice was silvery and her words illicit as Felicity relished the way Moira’s face twisted at each and every one.

“He will tire of you.”  
Felicity smiled, watching as Moira’s fingers closed into a fist.  
“Likely,” Felicity shrugged, “but should you lay his father to rest in this life without him being here, what will he come to think of you?”

Felicity watched as Moira’s expression cracked, she knew what Oliver would think – his impending anger was written across her face.

But Felicity also knew she would not relent and wait for Oliver’s return, because Oliver would discovery that it was not old age nor sickness that killed the Earl Robert Queen, Grand Master, but rather that it was a blade.

_Which meant the Moira didn’t want Oliver to know._

It was only a few moments before Moira regained her stoic expression, although she lacked the same stamina of it as she turned away from Felicity and walked towards a small writing desk not far from the large stone hearth.

“I am preparing to dispatch a rider to give him the message, but he is some distance and it will take Oliver some time to return,” she advised with a steeled tongue  
“You would send a messenger who rides only for the hours of daylight and would stop for ten hours rest at night,” Felicity mocked, “it will take him longer than a week to travel to Bristol

A smile drew up the corners of Moira’s mouth as she turned on the spot, ensuring she could see Felicity as she spoke her next words.  
“Oliver isn’t in Bristol, he’s in Havenrock,” Moira clarified, “perhaps you don’t hold quite as much of his attention as you think.”

Felicity masked her surprise well, though the wheels of her mind immediately sprung into action.

 _Oliver had told her he was leaving for Bristol, why would be lie?_  
_But more importantly, what was Oliver doing in Havenrock?_

“I must have misheard him,” Felicity offered with a flat tone, “if he is so close then, allow him the time to return, a few days at most, or allow me to make the ride.”  
The laugh was silent but written through every facet of Moira’s face.  
“If you leave these grounds,” Moira quietly slithered as she walked her way towards Felicity, the malice clear in her hung eyes, “I will make sure that you never return.”

The stood, stare to stare, for dragged moments before a disembodied voice outside the room requested to see Lady Moira.

“Thea has asked that I accompany her tonight.”  
“You will make sure that you don’t,” Moira bit back

Silently she circled Felicity, her eyes sharp and dark.  
“You will never be enough for him,” she scathed with a taunt voice, “never be what he wants.”

Felicity let her words go unchallenged as Moira slipped from the room.

Moira still thought this was about money and power, but to Felicity this was about so much more.

* * *

  
When Felicity left the castle, her feet hurried across the pathways as her skirt flailed in the high wind behind her until she found Cooper lulling against the stables watching as the messenger saddled his mare.

Felicity needed Oliver to return sooner than Moira anticipated.

“Ride to Havenrock, find Oliver and tell him of Robert’s passing,” Felicity instructed, her tone hushed but forceful  
“Is that not his job?” Cooper jested as he pointed his head towards the aging rider  
“He’ll probably die before he gets there. Oliver needs to return before the pyre at midnight, he needs to see his father’s injuries.”  
“Why is he in Havenrock? I thought he travelled to Bristol?”  
“As did I,” Felicity revealed, “have your horse throw a shoe and stay on in Havenrock to see what questions he asked.”

“And you?”  
Felicity looked back towards the castle, it was not unfathomable to think that Moira would not let her _blight_ carry on within the walls – _one way or the other,_ but she would deal with that should she need to.

“Ride now,” she ordered, “don’t stop.”  
She turned and left, aware that every eye watched her.

She had barely made it back to the steps of the Castle when she heard the ricochet of galloping hooves before she turned to see Cooper passing through the outer gates.

 

* * *

 

**[Havenrock]**

“Did you find anything?” Oliver asked pointed, frustrated that the time spent here had been without much to show.

They had spent days travelling along the nearby towns and Oliver himself had searched through the ruins of the burnt out house in search of something – _anything_.

“No one believes he had a son,” John lamented as he brushed the road dust from his trousers

Oliver could see the ruined house just in the distance as he kicked a heavy food through the forest floor.

“What about when you came here?” John asked as he took a swing of water from his pouch  
“I never went to his house,” Oliver replied as his eyes roamed around the familiar surroundings “father kept us at a distance.”

The trees had changed much since Oliver had last been there, running through them with Tommy in search of some small creature to hunt as they grew tired of the confines of the inn not too far from this location.

“So you saw nothing?”  
“No, although I was almost…” Oliver’s words stopped as a memory came flooding back to him, this clearing, that moment, “a girl.”

“My Lord?” John inquired  
“Why had I not thought of it,” Oliver hummed, his words muttered under his breath as his eyes ferried around the clearing, “there was a girl.”

He stepped further into the woods, John following close behind as Roy too approached after tying the horses to a nearby tree.

“Here,” Oliver nodded, the trees were taller and blocked more of the sun then they once had, but it was the same place, he was sure of it, “she was practicing with a bow, I startled her.”

Oliver paused, a heavy hand stroking down the back of his neck before it lightly floated to the front.  
“She could have killed me,” he recounted, his voice brittle and tight

“What does this have to do with finding the Kuttler child?” John cautioned  
“Because,” Oliver mused, “we’ve search instinctively for a boy, but we won’t find him.”

John looked at him bewildered.  
“He had a daughter,” Oliver revealed while his memory replayed the flash of the young girl – her fluid movement, her speed, the fierce look of eyes that hung like painting in his mind.

“Trained a daughter?” John said, his tone one of disbelief  
“She moved faster than I could, like a gust of wind and, despite being half my height and as light as a feather, she knocked me clear on my back,” Oliver stooped, his palm stroking the floor where he was sure he had once fallen.

Of course nothing remained of that time, but with every instinct he had, he felt it.  
“She was trained,” he finished as he stood once more

“Go into the town, ask about a young girl with raven hair and extravagant blue eyes.”

* * *

  
It was not long before Roy and John returned, eager to tell Oliver what they had learned.

“They say there was a small girl, quite young, that they saw from time to time, they believed she was a housemaid as they only ever saw her alone or with the Lady,” John advised, still dubious over Oliver’s belief that the child the sought was a girl.

“An older woman in the town swore she had blonde hair, she recalls it quite vividly falling down from her bonnet. She said it was like honeycomb and she offered to buy it but the girl just looked at her with cold eyes,” John continued his retelling of the older merchant woman’s story

“The girl never spoke a word to anyone, always came with a list. They thought her mute and dumb,” Roy added

Oliver ruminated over John’s words, despite the differences he couldn’t let go of the feeling that this path was the right one.

“Did they say what happened to her?”  
John shook his head, “only that one day about a decade ago, the girl stopped coming. No one asked why.”

“It’s her,” Oliver avowed  
“We have no way of knowing that,” John digressed  
“I looked into her eyes she was neither dumb nor mute, why pretend she was?” Oliver challenged, though he needed to answer, “did she have a name?”  
“Some say she answered to Megan,” Roy stated

Oliver strode back the way they had come as he headed back to where the horses were left. It was then that she saw Cooper approach across the plains, his body limp in the saddle and his horse barely making each stride.

“Get him some water,” Oliver ordered Roy who did so without delay

Cooper stumbled from the horse, his legs unable to carry him far before he dropped to his knees.  
“What are you doing here?” Oliver asked with urgency, his mind turning straight to concern for Felicity’s safety.

Cooper opened his parched lips to speak but his words were strangled and inaudible.

Roy placed a skin bottle into his hands and Cooper took a long drink before coughing the dust from his lungs.  
  
“Felicity sent me my Lord,” Cooper managed to say with a hoarse tone  
“Is she alright?”  
Cooper nodded, “your father, he has passed.”

* * *

  
Felicity watched from her window as the smoke rose from the pyre across the lake. Thea had been most distraught that she wouldn’t come with her but Felicity had given her a little solace by offering to attend the early feast that was being readied in the dining hall now and would stretch until the day broke the next morning.

Oliver had not returned and while this disheartened Felicity, it was not surprising. The journey was long are arduous and what she had asked was near impossible.

Oliver wouldn’t know how his father had died.

Felicity could see the procession of torches moving across the landscape. It was time to ready herself.

* * *

  
“I do wish you could have come,” Thea said quietly as she slipped her arm into the crook of Felicity’s elbow when the met at the bottom of the staircase.

The same place they had met that fateful night so long ago now.

“I’m sorry Thea,” Felicity spoke quietly as she stole a look towards Moira, clothed in a fine draped court gown, a wimple and veil of red and black and the practiced expression of a woman in mourning, “it was for the best.”

“I know she doesn’t care for you,” Thea sighed, her tone thin and tired, “but if she could see how much Oliver loves…”  
“You must not talk like that,” Felicity interrupted, though her words were soft and kindly  
“Why? He does.”  
She spoke so innocently, showing just how young she was.

“We shall be sisters one day,” Thea continued before she passed a heavy yawn, “I should like to have a sister.”  
“Thea, you must stop,” Felicity pleaded  
The young girl looked stunned, “but I know it to be true, Oliver loves you and people who are in love get married.”

 _Love_ the word was like a dagger to Felicity's chest every time Thea spoke it with such disregard for what a girl of her stature must have known.

And yet, she spoke it like she truly believed it.

Although Felicity always knew the way forward carried the weight of hurting so many she had managed to bury the humanity of this family for the sake of her reprisal. But as Thea’s haunting eyes and careless use of the word Love drilled her senses, Felicity realised just how big a toll it all would take.

She had wanted to destroy Oliver’s heart as she believed he had destroyed hers – _only now, now that was a two-edged sword she may be unwilling to wield._

She had to trample Thea’s innocence to spare her pain.

“Your brother does not love me, nor I him,” she spoke coldly, “we enjoy the company of one another while we can, but I will leave and he will enjoy the company of another until he takes a wife befitting his stature. You know this.”

She stopped before the words became much crueller in their delivery as she saw the pain threaded through Thea’s troubled eyes. Her back went rigid as she stiffened her shoulders.  
“My brother does love you, should you not feel the same way about him then you should leave.”

Thea offered only a curt smile before she turned to a nearby maid and requested she be taken back to her chambers to rest.

Felicity had spent much too long here, her life becoming much too entangled in those around her.

_This needed to end._

The regret was burdensome and for a moment Felicity contemplated following Thea, at least until Oliver threw open the door with a tempest brewing in his tangled and twisted expression.

“Oliver,” Moira startled before she shot a look of knives at Felicity  
“Where is he?” Oliver demanded, his hair was dishevelled, his garb dirtied and his skin patched with the dust from the journey.  
He had sped back a fast as his horse could take him.

“Your father has passed Oliver, the pyre will burn for a few hours yet if you –“  
“You could not have waited a day?” he roared as the onlookers that floated around the room soon huddled into the shadows or, those that knew what was to come, scurried from the room.

“Robert did not wish to linger in death,” Moira replied abruptly  
“ONE DAY,” Oliver screamed, the sound of his booming voice echoed off every surface and sent a shockwave across the stone floor before he stormed further into the room, stopping a mere foot from his mother’s grimaced face.

“Mind your tone,” Moira hissed as the whispers started around the room, “you will take up his mantle and see the elders soon,” she added with words only heard by Oliver

“You father would have wanted that,” she continued in an undertone  
_How little she knew of what his father wanted._

“Get. Out,” Oliver spoke through gritted teeth  
“You will not…”  
“Get. Out,” he repeated

Moira considered her options, but her pride meant she would not make a spectacle here and now. She side stepped Oliver’s broad shoulders and walked from the room with her shoulders plucked back and her chin raised as a trail of maidservants followed along behind her.

Oliver turned in half circles, back and forth, his eyes touching upon the few dozen looking back at him.  
“GET OUT!” he bellowed, once again his echo like a thunderous clap heard around the room

People scattered as quickly as their shuffled feet would take them from the room. Felicity watched as Oliver ran heavy, angered hands through his hair, fisting into the shorts and digging into his scalp before his shoulders fell forward in a heavy burden of distress.

Felicity swallowed words as she made her short path towards the door.  
“Not you,” Oliver spoke, his tone threaded with a plea that his words struggled to convey

She stopped and watched his back as he took lumbered breaths, his hands now digging into the top cross bar of a chair.

She could see, even from this distance of fifty feet that his knuckles were turning white and his fists were shaking into the wood.

Oliver picked up the chair and threw it the opposite direction to where Felicity stood, shattering it against the unforgiving stone wall. His cry was twisted with mangled pain as his arms drove across the table sending food and crockery crashing to the floor.

Still unsatisfied with his thirst for destruction Oliver threw one of the few remaining plates of food from the table against the wall, smashing it into countless shards.

Felicity walked a few feet into the room to close the space of tension between them.  
“Do you wish me to stay my Lord,” she whispered into the lull of his strangled voice  
“Do I frighten you?” he rasped, thin and bitter  
Two steps forward, “no my Lord.”

Oliver’s fists pounded into the wooden table jolting it ferociously and toppling two chairs that abutted it.  
“Do I frighten you?” he repeated, his voice becoming deeper and rougher around the edges

Three steps towards him, his imposing body now barely a reach away.  
“You do not frighten me my Lord,” she whispered, a gentle palm touched against the table not far from where his hand stayed fisted.

Oliver looked up, the startling blue of his eyes were sharp like ice.  
“I should,” he taunted, his anger not geared towards her but rather against himself

Felicity took another step forward and even though she stood just an inch from him, her hands remained at her side.

“I do not fear you my Lord,” she whispered, her hot breath misted against his dusty jaw, ghosting the feel of her lips there.

Oliver stole a hungered look at her and she could see the heavy breaths wracking his chest before he looked down at his calloused and scarred hands.  
Felicity sunk against the table, propping her ass against the lip of it before she raised herself slightly onto the same.

“I do not fear you my Lord,” she whispered a reincarnation of those words for a third time as her fingers danced just above his taunt arms

Felicity spread her legs either side of him before she rested on her palms with arms stretched out behind her.

“I do not fe…”  
Felicity never finished the words for a fourth time as Oliver’s lips came crashing onto hers.

His bearded growth skimmed against her smooth chin as his lips caressed hers taking every breath and every simpered sigh she offered up.

His stormy eyes rocked waves against the pitch black pupils, the long ride taking its toll upon the edges of his tormented eyes.

He wanted her soft skin beneath his hands, to feel the curve of it like skin passing underneath. He needed the pleasures he found in her body and the comfort he found in her arms. His fingers trembled at the tie of her dress, the creases of them worn bare from his reins and caked with dried blood and dust.

He could not control their tremble enough to loosen the laces and even if her could it would take precious minutes he feared he could not wait. Oliver’s hands fisted in the fabric, it had always felt so stiff and heavy but tonight it felt like the pages of a book – utterly tear-able.

Oliver heard the first tear before he was able to comprehend that the sound had been because of him. It was with trepidation that he met her eyes, worried they would want him no longer or, worse still, that they now feared him. But he saw neither and in fact her eyes sung a silent song of approval as she thrust her chest upward and threw her arms behind her, pulling the fabric taunt in his grip and making his task much simpler.

The second tear seemed to echo across the room in its indecency. Another one was all it took for her dress to gape apart, open over her chest and exposing the thin chemise underneath. The silken fabric felt like nothing more than smoke between his fingers and it took barely any strength to tear in down the centre.

Felicity gasped as the air around them felt like thorns to her naked flesh. Her skin lit up with goose bumps and her nipples tightened under his stare as her dress dropped from her shoulders and draped down her arms.

Oliver lips sunk into the dip of her neck, his teeth gnashing against the threads of sensitive skin there. Felicity keened under his attentions as his unshaven jaw brushed roughly against her. She could feel her skin contorting to his whims as his lips sucked around her and his teeth sunk into her.

Her breathing became stilted and strangled as his strong hands moulded around her shoulders and his thumbs pressed into the tip of her collarbone. She knew his kisses would leave her body marked in places that would not be so easily hidden but she didn’t stop him, even as his secretly spent tear bled into her neck.

But she could not contain the shuddered gasp that slipped from her pouted lips when his teeth broke the surface of her skin.

Oliver pulled back, his eyes threaded with regret and his mouth paused over an apology. Felicity touched the pads of her fingers to his troubled face, watching as his eyes hung closed at the comfort such a touch afforded him.

She reached her chin up and caught his open lips. Oliver melted into the kiss, a second tear rolling painfully down his cheek. Felicity brushed it away with her thumb as she deepened the kiss and pulled his body closer.

No words were said.  
None were needed.

His lips danced from the seam of hers, along her jaw and down the unscathed side of her neck as his thumb trailed along behind, dragging her silk skin underneath it.

Felicity’s hands returned to the table, bracing against it as her body dropped under the weight of his kiss. Her fingers spread into a plate of roasted meat as her other hand knocked over a flagon of ale. The noise echoed through the empty hall but his lips never left off her.

He trailed heated, wet kisses down her chest before his lips swarmed around her breast, taking her nipple into his hot mouth. His tongue toyed with it, rolling it slowly around as it tightened and hardened. His chin kneaded into the underside of her breast as his ears relished the honeyed moans that she so freely gave him.

His other hand slipped under the tatters of the torn dresses and rode the curve of her waist up and down, delighting in the way even his most calloused hands could not take away from the softness of her velvet skin. It was like rich cream passing through his fingers and he would never know that feeling with another – of that he was sure.

For endless minutes his tongue caressed her nipple, lavishing the most salacious attention upon it, before he tore himself away and set his eyes further down her waist. His hands started under her knees and he watched as her eyes rolled at the contact. Slowly he dragged his hands upward, taking the skirts of her ruined dresses up with him. Oliver flipped the fabric onto her waist revealing her intimacy to his hungry eyes.

But it was his finger that touched her first, slow and measured strokes between her folds with his eyes watching the way his thick finger scooped between her swollen folds and came out glistened in her juices. He pressed his finger to his lips and painted them with her arousal as her eyes watched him with wicked wonderment.

He touched her again, pressing his fingers deeper this time and skirting her entrance with heavy strokes. Felicity’s arched into it, food spilling behind her as her palms adjusted once more.

Oliver’s fingers impaled her, two digits sinking into her tight entrance. Felicity gasped as her eyes widened with the unexpected nature of it but softened as Oliver stroked his long fingers against her smooth walls, dragging illicit moans of undulate pleasure from her teeth-marred lips.

His head dropped to her chest to allow his tongue to trace a path of his own design down between her breasts before twisting into the nipple he had left untouched before.

Felicity keened as her head dropped backwards, a curtain of golden hair floating through the spilled food and drink. The smell of red wine tickled her nostrils as she bucked her hips against his waist forcing his fingers deeper inside her.

Oliver took the silent request and sunk them to the last knuckle, spreading her even as she clenched around him.

But it wasn’t enough, he needed more.

With fluid and strong arms Oliver turned Felicity so her entire body was on top of the table. Whatever food laden plates or empty cups that had been left discarded on the table were now laid to waste on the floor in a crashing heap that was unmistakably loud.

Oliver leapt onto the table and pushed Felicity’s legs apart as she lifted herself onto her elbows. His tongue delved between her folds, splaying them apart with the flat of it. Felicity lulled into the pressure as her nails dug into the grain of the wooden table.

Oliver’s noises became louder, his heavy growls and panted moans filling the otherwise silent room. So engrossed they both were that neither noticed a side door creak open until after a scurry of servants entered the room.

Oliver looked up, his hands locking Felicity’s thighs to the table and his mouth glistening with traces of her.

Felicity had expected his booming voice to fill the room and order them out but he didn’t seem to care about their intrusion and his lips said nothing, but for a twistedly wicked smile.

Eyes lowered and feet shuffled from the room much faster than they had entered it before Oliver sat up on his knees and tore down his pants. His hard cock sprung forward, the tip already dripping with anticipation. His tongue would devour her later, Oliver needed to be inside her, now.

Felicity lay back and lifted her hips from the table – she wanted that too.

With his pants barely over his thighs Oliver thrust into Felicity, propelling her forward and shaking the legs of the heavy table. She snipped at the air with her lips, his name sitting at the very edge of them. Oliver struck again, burying himself deeper into her confines. It wasn’t about taking their time.

Hot strokes of air fanned out across her chest as his head dropped again and his lips caressed her breast.

His tongue twisted and his teeth grazed across her sensitive budded nipples as he hopped greedily from one to the other.

Her legs raised around him, urging him deeper and daring him faster. Everything shook underneath them as his cock pummelled her walls with impetuous and impatient frenzy.

She felt every thrust of it, her body wracked with the pleasure each one bought her as her mind tripped over the words Thea had so bluntly spoken

_He loves you._

She tore his head from her chest to see his eyes, they were wide with desire and intense with longing, but threaded through them was something more, something she had refused to look at before and for just a moment, Felicity wondered what Oliver saw reflected in her own eyes.

The intensity of his stare became too much and she blinked away, her mind almost too raptured in her own thoughts to not notice that his thrusts had become quickened and his chest was tensing above her.

Her fingers traced the lines of his chest still shrouded behind cloth as her eyes stayed focused on the tiny crease at the corner of his mouth.

She could feel his cock swelling inside her and she watched his mouth gulp for air.

She had studied him well and she knew what it all meant, Oliver was close. Her own orgasm stilled as Felicity thought about the emptiness she would soon be feeling…but it never came.

Oliver continued inside her, faster, the build-up twitching and tensing down the back of his legs.

“My Lord,” Felicity whispered, bracing her hands against his shoulders  
He didn’t relent, his body smashing up against hers with passionate fever. Her walls constricted around him as Felicity fought back her own release – he was still inside her.

“My Lord,” she spoken again, her tone louder and more hurried and her fingers now clawed into his shoulder.

His eyes locked on hers but they were unblinking and lost behind a web of torture and sadness; they were the eyes of a man on the brink of a war.

Felicity dove a hand between them and danced his balls across her fingertips, they were tight and hard and ready.

“Oliver,” Felicity called out slapping a hand against neck before her nails scraped threads of the same.

The assault threw him harshly back into the moment and Oliver pulled his cock free just as thick streams of seed spurted from the tip and dripped down her thighs.

His eyes, finally seeing clearly, looked down at Felicity as her soft pants now became heavy intakes of air.

He could see the anger leaking from her irises and he knew why.

Oliver’s hand took a fist of her dress and wiped it delicately across her thigh, removing the tarnish of his release from her smooth skin.

He didn’t wipe himself as he silently folded his cock back behind the curtain of his pants and stepped down from the table.

Felicity sat up, her dress falling back down her waist and her hands pulled the torn edged together, covering her chest as best she could.

“Look at me,” she urged with taut tone  
Oliver hung his head low as his fingers trekked across his scalp. He wouldn’t.  
“Look at me,” she repeated, her voice more ordered and sharp

Oliver turned, slowly, his eyes finally meeting with hers. He could see the storm brewing behind them and she had every reason for the tumultuous look

“You meant to, didn’t you?” she asked, the words did not to be spoken bluntly for the message to be carried.  
Oliver wanted to come inside her and Felicity knew.

He paced jagged lines as the truth sat at the tip of his tongue, _but if it fell, what then would she make of him?_

Oliver had wanted to, for a moment when he saw her blossoming lips and the gentle blue of her eyes, he wanted to imagine a life with her – away from this world he didn’t wish to be a part of, away from his mother’s insistence and the Order’s required devotion.

He imagined a small house set on the edge of a few fields, she was beside him as he toiled in the crops. Her face soft and the sun reflecting so beautifully on it and her stomach rounded with his child.

A child that was theirs.

“Answer me,” she repeated, her words more forceful than the last

“Yes,” he whispered the answer, but it carried like a booming voice to her ears  
Felicity’s lips twisted over her thoughts as two sides of her emotions battled with each other.

 _This had gone too far._  
_She had taken too much._  
_Risked so much more._

“Would that be so wrong?” Oliver asked as he fell at her feet and pressed his head to her waist.  
“You and I both know the answer to that,” Felicity’s voice trembled, too far, before she uncoiled his arms and stepped away from him.

She saw him broken.  
His heart belonged to her and where once she swore to crush it, tonight Felicity only wanted to give it back.

What Oliver didn’t see looking up at Felicity before he dropped further to his knees was that he had stolen her heart also.

_What little was left of it anyway._

 

* * *

 

Moira held the candle in an unwavering hand as she walked into the dark room where Laurel and Sara slept. She turned to the younger first, holding the light up to Sara’s face and watching for any indication that sleep had not yet taken her.

When satisfied that she was asleep she walked the short path to Laurel’s bed and placed the pewter candle holder on a table beside the bed.

“Wake up,” she ordered bitterly  
Laurel roused slowly, her eyes blinking slowly at the intrusion.  
“We must set matters in motion,” Moira said coldly

Her son would take his rightful place.  
Robert’s mantle would become Oliver’s and Robert’s secrets would die with him. She had done so much to ensure that and she would not surrender now.

“What would you have me do?” Laurel asked, rubbing slow hands through tired eyes  
“There is to be a week of feasting as many travel here to pass on condolences and to scrape the barrel of whatever allegiances they might be able to make with my son,” Moira remarked

She expected many leaches to come out from the woodworks to gain the listening ear of Oliver as the rights of his father passed down to him.

“Oliver will be taken in his grief and in two days’ time when the festivities are well underway I will ensure his cup is never empty. When he is well drunk you will go to his chambers at night and lie with him,” Moira spoke briskly

She had hoped it would not come to this, that her son would take his place and his power and relish the same, but it was now becoming clear that he wanted neither and that just wouldn’t do.

“And what of his companion?” Laurel sneered  
“Don’t worry about her. Stay with him until morning so that she may discovery the two of you together.”  
“Oliver will reject me,” Laurel quipped

“For a time perhaps, but not once he finds you pregnant with his child.”  
“But what if I don’t fall pregnant?”  
“Then we shall have to steal you a baby won’t we?”  
Moira smiled as though her words were nothing more than a harmless joke, but anyone who knew what she was capable of would not have been naïve enough to believe that.

Sara pressed a hand to her lips in the darkness as she blocked the gasp that threatened to expose her.

She had heard it all.  
Every last word.


	12. Innocent

It was the mid-morning as Felicity watched a flock of majestic herons set off from across the lake. She had not spoken with Oliver since last night and he had thrown himself into training exercises with his men in the fields across from where she sat to entertain visiting patriarchs from nearby boroughs.

The noise carried across the pristine lake, booming orders and the distinctive sounds of blade against blade. Felicity was aware that most ladies would have retreated indoors, their ears much too sensitive for the harsh realities of it, but Felicity was not _most ladies_ and the sound brought her a familiar comfort as she just sat, eating an apple and trying to establish what it was about this twisted web that she was missing.

“May I speak with you?” Sara asked most quietly.  
Felicity tipped her head over her shoulder, expecting to find the most cheerful face of a woman she had yet to understand, but instead she found the dark circles of a woman in turmoil.

“You have the most amazing hearing, it’s as though…” Sara didn’t finish her words as she took a hesitant step forward.

It appeared the younger Lance sister was far more observant than her sister who wore jealous rafters in her eyes and could not see further than that.

“Sit, please,” Felicity smiled as her head nodded at the empty space beside her.  
Sara’s eyes tracked around their surroundings for a moment, looking perhaps for something or someone that she thought might be there.

“We are quite alone if that’s what troubles you?” Felicity confirmed as she shifted her skirt against the stone bench.  
“How are you sure?” Sara asked inquisitively.

Felicity nodded towards the lake as she answered, “the water would amplify even the quietest of sounds, that is how I heard you.”  
It was true to at least some extent and the explanation seemed to settle Sara’s nerves enough for her to take up the seat beside Felicity.

“How is it you’re free?” Sara asked, her eyes looking wayward across the waters, narrowed in on a slight ripple.

 _Free_  
To Sara perhaps she was, but Felicity was bound by something other than family and castle walls. She had never truly been free.

“How is it you are caged?” Felicity replied before she watched Sara’s blush pink lips softly part with an unheard sigh.  
“I must tell you something,” Sara spoke, her lips trembled and her voice tired and thin, “but I fear it will cost me greatly for my sister will know it is I that told you.”

“And what will it cost me?” Felicity asked, observing as Sara’s body tensed amongst what would be the baring of her next words.  
Sara turned, her knees shifting to glide against the side of Felicity’s leg and her blue eyes ripe with a question that would become like a sin if it were to pass over her lips.

“Just a kiss,” she spoke through an exhale before her eyes squeezed closed, the gravity of her words hung like a noose around her neck.

“Have your lips ever felt the touch of another woman’s?” Felicity asked, brushing back a soft tear that formed at the corner of Sara’s closed eye.

Whatever secret she held tormented her deep below the surface.

“Only in my dreams,” Sara whispered airily.

Felicity’s palm cupped the side of Sara’s face which she nestled into, seeking its warmth. Slowly Felicity moved closer, her lips staying just a hair’s breadth from where Sara’s trembled, but did not retreat.

Just a brush of red against blushed pink, lip against lip, smooth, slow and deliberate. Felicity felt the instant Sara fell into it as a sigh passed across her lips onto Felicity’s. Hesitantly Sara’s fingers walked up Felicity’s arm until they sunk into the golden tresses of her hair and her palm drunk in the warmth of her supple neck.

Their lips sung together, both wet with the tears that Sara spent as time rolled slowly over them. It was tender and gentle, much less desperate than any ravenous kiss that Oliver had stolen Felicity’s lips with, but this was not about Felicity and she knew it.

Breaking the lingered, sinful kiss, Felicity pulled away leaving Sara’s lips pouted and wanting, but they wanted for something more than Felicity could offer.

“Open your eyes,” Felicity whispered, casting aside the stray tears that marred tracks down Sara’s cheeks.  
Sara obeyed, her lids slowly raising.  
“You are only as caged as you wish to be,” Felicity added as the soft pad of his thumb scooped a tear from Sara’s lower lip.

And then Sara told her.  
She told her of Laurel’s bitter jealously and of Moira’s desire for control.  
She told her of every secret she was privy to, of quiet plans that saw Laurel point a false charge at Thomas Merlyn, a change so distasteful to Felicity’s Lord that it forced Oliver to exile his childhood friend to Spanish shores.

Sara told how Oliver had never wished to believe it, but Laurel presented crocodile tears and torn clothes and forced Sara to lie to bolster her claim.

Felicity never spoke, just listened, but the pieces began to fit. Oliver had sheltered Laurel from society’s judgmental eyes by allowing her to live within the walls – as though she was his betrothed – and Moira gained a weak and fickle-minded pawn to move around the chessboard until she would be sacrificed for the ‘greater good’.

And then Sara told her of last night.  
The plan that would have Oliver fooled into becoming a father, one way or another, and presented him with only one honourable choice – to marry Laurel – which she knew Oliver would do as his duty.

“They will know I told you,” Sara whispered, when all her secrets had been spilled, “but for just a moment I wished to no longer be the canary kept in a cage.”

Felicity took Sara’s trembling hands between her own and squeezed them tightly.  
“Then don’t,” she insisted, “leave this place, it should not be a cage for you.”  
“I have nowhere to go,” Sara sobbed, her eyes heavy with sadness.  
“A bird does not need a nest to fly to, it makes one where it chooses to land. You are far better than your sister and when her walls crumble they should not bury you also, leave,” Felicity assured, never letting Sara’s hands drop from between her own.  
“But how?”  
“Walk quickly to your room, stopping to speak with no one, take no finery and only a few items of clothes that you are able to ride in, do you understand?”  
Sara nodded slowly.  
“Good, then meet me at the stables as soon as you are done. Do not linger.”

Felicity waited for Sara to nod a second time to show that she had heard and understood the instructions before the two parted ways.

* * *

It was less than an hour when Felicity found Sara waiting anxiously at a short distance from the stable doors with a rug sack hidden half behind her simple skirt of blue velvet.  
“Do you have all you need?” Felicity asked as she watched the fear trickle through Sara’s eyes.

“I do,” Sara replied quietly, her voice barely reaching above a whisper  
“Good,” Felicity replied as Cooper appeared from the stables, leading a saddled hose behind him.

Oliver had not allowed him to linger in Havenrock alone and he had ridden back through the night under John Diggle’s watchful eye.

“There are enough provisions in the saddle bags to last you for a week if you eat them sparingly,” Felicity begun as she nodded for Cooper to affix the rug sack, “stay to the roads when you travel and stop only in the places I have marked on the map for you.”

“I mean to leave?” Sara asked, her expression caught between fear and relief.  
“And you should never need to come back to this cage they keep you in,” Felicity avowed.  
“But where will I go, I have nothing?”  
“This man will ride two days’ journey with you and then you will ride the rest of the way to London, this note will get you passage to wherever you wish it,” Felicity advised as she handed the note with Oliver’s seal.

“His Lordship gave you this?”  
“It has come from my hand, but it will see you safe Sara. There is enough gold to see you start a life elsewhere and jewels that you may barter for whatever you need.”  
“They will come looking for me,” Sara lamented.  
“They will not know where to look and I will smooth it over with his Lordship,” Felicity soothed, “no one will find you.”

The relief grew across Sara’s expression as she allowed herself to imagine being free from the shackles which bound her to a family she neither trusted nor liked and to a life that suffocated her.

“Can we trust him?” Sara asked, nodding towards Cooper as he brought a second readied horse out from the stables.  
“Do you trust me?” Felicity asked.  
Sara did not hesitate to nod.  
“Then trust him also, but you must go now so it will be hours before anyone notices your absence.”

Felicity lifted Sara’s chin with just one finger, “do you still wish to be free?” she asked, watching Sara’s eyes for any flicker of doubt  
“Yes,” Sara replied, not a doubt found.

Felicity helped her onto her horse and bid her farewell with a gentle smile and a soft nod of her head.  
“Then go,” Felicity assured, “your life awaits you.”

In a cloud of dust Sara and Cooper disappeared through the gates and Felicity felt a wave of relief settle over her, because after what Sara had told her and what Felicity herself had witnessed, Felicity was most certain that Moira would have seen to it that Sara was never allowed to utter another secret, she would become an innocent with the same fate as Robert.

* * *

  
“And you’re sure of it?” Oliver asked as he paced the room, his hand enraptured through his length of hair.  
“You doubt me my Lord?” Felicity asked as she stood back from him, her voice calm and quiet, but far from demure or trembled.

Felicity had told Oliver _most_ of what she knew, although she kept perhaps the most damning of all to herself – the fact that his mother was at the helm of this plan. There was a two-fold reason for holding such information back from Oliver, one was strategic and the other was emotive.

Strategically Felicity needed to know what secrets Moira kept, like why she so coldly took her husband’s life and why she so desperately wanted Oliver shackled to a woman he did not love and could barely stand. The more Felicity’s eye turned to Moira for reprisal the more it looked away from Oliver, and perhaps that was yet another motive. To truly understand what chess piece the matriarch played Felicity needed her to remain in play until the end of the game.

For now she stood, regal on the chequered board of black and ivory as the Black Queen.

The second reason, the one that Felicity sat on the precipice of accepting, was for Sara’s benefit. If Moira was not implicated in the plot then it’s failure would rest on Laurel’s shoulders rather than Sara’s, therefore granting the run away more time to disappear where Moira’s rage could not reach.

“And Sara told you this?”  
“Yes my Lord she overheard Laurel speaking with another she did not recognise, though I beg that you do not speak of her involvement,” Felicity offered, sensing Oliver’s eyes as they sought out any deception in her words before darkening when they could not.

“Where is she so that I may ask her?” Oliver asked, although he believed Felicity for she had no reason to lie about such things, he would not have this turned against her should word get out about who told him.  
“She has left,” Felicity simpered.  
“Left where?” he questioned, confusion threaded through his tone.  
“Forgive me Lord but I will not tell you that,” she replied honestly, it pained her to see the way his brow rose at the realisation there was something she was keeping from him, but this was not her secret to divulge and to give Sara the best chance of being free from a life she did not want, her steps were best kept closely guarded.

Oliver’s feet set about pacing again, scuffing against the worn wood in the same tracks he always took.  
“Why not?” he asked, a wisp of rage caught between his words.  
“She wished to be free from been forced to drag under the fringes of her sister’s skirt, should I divulge to you her direction you are far too an honourable man to lie to her father should he ask it of you,” Felicity replied.

With each word she spoke his face softened. Her words were like ointment to his scolded pride and when she had finished her last word there was a tempered smile bleeding across his lips.  
“How is it you are able to turn a secret kept into a benefit to me?” he asked jovially.  
“Some call it a gift my Lord,” she reckoned, returning his smile with a soft one of her own.  
“And what do you call it Felicity?” her name felt like a song between his lips and most pleasant to his ears.  
“A means.”

Oliver saw the resolve in her eyes, it would not matter how hard he pushed for more information her heavenly soft lips would not offer him a single morsel more.

He walked briskly to the door and found Roy dutifully waiting on the other side.  
“Ask Raisa to have the linen changed in this room and the Duke of Wayshire moved to my chambers for the night. Only yourself and Raisa need know the details and if he asks tell him he would find these arrangements far more pleasing,” Oliver instructed, waiting for Roy to nod his understanding before he closed the door just as suddenly as he had opened it.  
  
“You would have your room leant out to a man who is as old as he is deaf?” Felicity smiled, recounting her introduction to the old coot who allowed his eyes to wander far too long over her bosom.  
“He also an easy drunk and a deep sleeper,” Oliver added with a tipped smile that read of wheels turning in his head.  
“And where will you sleep tonight?” Felicity inquired, watching Oliver as he took mesmerising slow steps towards her.  
“I was hoping with you, if you have forgiven my grievous actions from last night,” he pleaded most apologetically, the regret in his eyes mimicking the same.

Ever since his return to Verdant some hours ago Oliver had humbled himself before her and begged for her forgiveness. He spoke of how his father’s death had shocked him and made his mind addled with thoughts that were not his right to want.

If anyone could understand how grief could cloud one’s mind it was Felicity, whether she would openly admit to that or not was yet to be seen, but she understood the hold such an emotion could have over a person.

All these passing months later, her parents’ deaths continued to make wormholes into her conscious.

It was for this reason that she forgave him.  
That and, perhaps foolishly, she wanted to.

“And what about what I have told you?” she asked as her eyes beckoned him closer and he took up the wordless request.  
“I will take care of it,” Oliver assure before his hand gently caressed the side of her face causing his thumb to skim over her bottom lip.  
“May I be permitted to ask how?” Felicity asked before her lips folded around his thumb and kissed him most salaciously for no other reason than the idea to do so took her fancy.  
“If what Sara has told you is true, then the morning will prove it but tonight I ask that you keep your distance from me, retire early for the night but do not sleep, I will come to you when the hour is late.”

“Anything else?” Felicity asked as his thumb dropped slowly from her luscious and wet lips.  
“Tell whoever you think might listen that we are quarrelling this night,” Oliver added with the beginnings of a cunning smile floating across his lips.  
“As you ask my Lord.”

* * *

 

 

The night grew thick and the jovial noise of the gathering echoed through the Grand Hall, even up the stairs and into Felicity’s chambers where she had retired much earlier. Her dress was put away, the colour washed from her lips and her hair a loose cascade of blonde down the back of the thin silk nightgown she wore as she waited in a dimly lit room just as Oliver had asked.

She had watched him fill the Duke’s glass time and time again throughout the night and she had also noticed, just barely, the way he had managed to limit his intake with clever slights of hand and inconspicuous flagon swapping.

Felicity imagined that the Duke was well on his way to falling pass out drunk any minute.

She had no way of knowing but that assumption was eerily accurate as no sooner had the thought crossed her mind, the Duke’s head hit the table.

Oliver beckoned John near.  
“Take the Duke to my chambers and leave the door unattended just as we discussed,” Oliver hushed in a deftly sober tone as he turned his lips away from the crowd so they could not be read.  
John nodded in reply, that was all that was needed.

Oliver returned to the table, loud and obnoxious in his behaviour to give a very realistic illusion of drunkenness.

“I SHALL RETIRE TO MY ROOM!” he announced loudly, to the point his booming voice echoed on the walls and shook the air throughout the banquet hall.

Moira, watching it all with trained eyes and a painted on smile, took Laurel by the elbow and led her to a corner where no eyes watched.  
“Now is your chance, wait a short time and then go to him room,” Moira intoned, “leave your lamp outside the room as the light may rouse him.”  
“But the night is nearly moonless I won’t be able to see inside his chambers,” Laurel retorted, her tone agitated that she must once again fool him to gain just a trifle of his affections.

“You will not need the light,” Moira hissed, she would not see her plans to force Oliver to take up his father’s mantle come undone because her foolish pawn could not see through a curtain of night.

“Be quiet when you walk and use careful hands to stimulate the only part of his body you need to have aroused. Consummate and do not clean yourself after,” she spoke decisively as her fingers tightened around Laurel’s arms until she nodded her agreement, “stay in his bed until morning. I have arranged for a man of the cloth to visit Oliver before the sun is fully awake for a prayer with him. When this pious man finds the two of you in bed he will make the marriage fait accompli and you will have your husband.”

Laurel’s lips twisted into a smile that was neither soft nor enchanting.

“And his Felicity, will she not visit him?” Laurel sneered  
A smile grew wilder across Moira’s lips, the girl who had dared to challenge her and did not seem to cower before her as others had, had – by the whispers that reached her ear – fallen out with Oliver, much to Moira’s engulfing delight.  
“The maids tell of their quarrelling and she has already retired for the night. She will not bother you.”

Laurel’s grin grew even more menacing as she steeled her resolve for what would come next. Certainly Oliver would hate her for a time and he would probably never truly love her, not in a way that kept his hands from wandering up the skirts of women that caught his eye and sparked his desire – but it didn’t matter. Their marriage did not require such a fanciful idea of love, she would settle for bare recognition within these walls so long as it provided her the title and luxuries that came along with his name.

He would not love her, but she did not care.  
He could fuck her sister for all she cared, provided the title and ceremony of his last name stayed hers.

Any child born from tonight would be carried simply to tether him to her even more completely. She would have a nurse maid care for the infant as she held no maternal desire for one of her own, but whatever needed doing, she would do to see the life she deserved afforded her.

“Where is your sister?” Moira asked, finally noticing the younger Lance’s absence.  
“She left a note saying she wished to travel to the convent to seek some solace,” Laurel mocked with a wave of her overly decorated hand, “I expect father will fetch her back in a few weeks.”

Moira gave Laurel's explanation no more time than a passing nod of acknowledgement.  
“See it done,” she added as a thinly veiled warning.

The Black Queen made her move.

* * *

  
While the White Queen waited.

Felicity opened the door to Oliver who was shrouded in John Diggle's simple cloak of greyed-black in an attempt to conceal his face.  
“Are you alone?” he whispered, though he already knew the answer.  
“Yes my Lord,” Felicity charmed as she stepped back and opened the door a little wider.

Oliver's eyes roamed her body, covered only by a thin night gown that did very little to cover the curves of her body that he had now memorized. Each freckle against porcelain skin was like a star map that he used to sail them both to new heights of euphoric pleasure.

“Put on an overcoat, I have a far more enthralling encounter in mind,” he spoke with a lucid thread of desire hung between his eyes and a devious pluck between his brows.

A few hurried minutes later found Felicity walking on silent footsteps down the staircase to the cellar. She heard the heavy door close and the creak of the crossbar locking them in. Whatever Oliver intended to do in that room, he did not wish to be disturbed.

“Why are we here?” she asked as she walked a delicate finger across the oak table  
“Do you remember the last time we were here?” Oliver inquired as his feet brushed through the dirt-laden cobblestones underfoot.  
“Yes,” Felicity breathed as an alluring finger traced along the delicate of her collarbone, the place she had allowed his lips to roam the first time.  
“Ever since that night,” he rasped as he closed the space between them to nothing more that a the reach of a soft sigh, “I have wanted to do something more.”

Felicity watched Oliver's eyes darken, even with just the dim orange glow of the lantern on a nearby barrel she could see the raptured threads of need and hunger woven around his pupil.

“Will you be naked before me?” Oliver asked with a sense of pleading as his fingers walked up the closure of her nightgown, toying with the soft ribbon that kept it closed.  
“Completely?” Felicity replied with half-closed eyes as she let the deep sounds of his breath entrance her.  
Oliver leaned it, brushing coarse skin against smooth, cheek to cheek until his lips reached her ear, “most completely.”

He pulled back to watch how her eyes toyed with his request. She kept his gaze and her pouted lips were smiling at the corners.  
“Yes,” she exhaled, “my Lord.”

Her words dripped down his body, stimulating ever nerve they touched as Felicity stepped back and shrugged off her overcoat.

The heavy fabric pooled around her feet and she didn’t disturb it as her fingers worked up the waif material of her gown. With Oliver's eyes anchored to her body she walked fingers slowly through the laces until the front gaped open enough for Felicity to shrug the gown from her shoulders. It floated like a feather to the ground and spilled like water over the top of her overcoat.

Her body shivered involuntarily as the dank, cool air surrounded her. Her breath caught in her throat as her nipples budded tightly without a touch before the heat of Oliver's gaze warmed her.

“You are the most beautiful vision I have seen,” Oliver sighed lithely as the back of his fingers stroked a slow, waved line down her arm.

Felicity shivered at the intimacy as she recklessly buried all other emotions. This was just her, naked, vulnerable, his.

“The most elusive beauty, behind the bluest of eyes,” Oliver continued as just a single finger roamed down between her breasts.

There was much he saw when he looked at her – a cleverness that she kept to herself perhaps out of understanding that for most men that was not something to be nurtured; a strength hidden just below the surface that she had not yet allowed him to see; and then, the most hauntingly beautiful of all, a sadness that he hoped to one day understand.

Perhaps that sadness would swallow him whole.  
Perhaps he would fall at her knees and beg her to take his life if he be the cause of it.  
_Perhaps_.

Oliver stooped at her feet to collect her satin-lined cloak. It felt like sin passing through his fingers before he stood and lay it out across the table. With gentle hands he lifted her onto the table as she scooted back until her knees grazed against the lip.

She watched with intrigue as Oliver filled a goblet with rich, deep ruby red wine. The scent of it quickly engulfed her, dancing erotic notes across her nose, it sung like heaven and breathed like sin.

He dipped a thick finger into the wine as he stepped between her legs with his eyes tethered to hers.

The first touch was the most sensual experience Felicity had ever encountered, dripping with the tepid wine and stained a soft pink hue, Oliver's finger passed between her breasts, creating a trail of red behind it. It was as though his finger was a brush, the wine his paint and her naked body his canvas.

His tongue mimicked the path his finger took, the flat of it sinking into her skin and delighting in the tastes of the aged wine melted with the subtle notes of her skin that he had come to memorize.

When Oliver’s tongue met the base of her neck he retreated it into his mouth so that just the tip drove up her neck, languishing over the pulse point before his lips encased her lobe and his teeth lightly nipped it.

“Lie down for me,” he rasped into her ear, his words not an order but Felicity followed them wordlessly.

The light warmed her body in threads of orange and darkened the shadows where it could not touch as she sunk down onto her elbows and Oliver began the slow ritual of painting paths across her body only to lap the paint up with his tongue.

When the sensation was no longer enough Oliver held the cup above her glistening body and tipped it just a fraction, enough that the rich, sweet liquid tickled of its own volition down the slight slope of her chest.

His lips swarmed around a drop that curved under her breast. Felicity arched into his libations, letting a sinfully long sigh drip from her lips now swollen with desire. Her teeth sunk into her pillowed bottom lip as Oliver trapped her taut nipple between his teeth, teasing the very tip of it with his tongue.

Rivers of wine slowly rolled over her skin in a delicious flurry of sensations as Oliver preened the lines of her pebbles nipple with nothing more that his tongue’s tip.

Felicity grasped at the silken makeshift blanket beneath her as a hunger grew in her stomach and moistened between her legs. Oliver, sensing her arousal, ran two thick and calloused fingers between her folds.

Her breast caved into his mouth as he sucked her inward, tasting every inch of her that he could.

He dropped her breast just as suddenly as he had encased it and watched her intently as a discouraged and unfettered sigh trickled from her lips, passing over the dents her teeth had left.

“You should be painted with paint and brush,” Oliver insisted, his voice guttural and carnal, “but then my jealousy would have me kill the painter in case his eyes took to remembering your form.”  
“You would be jealous of another’s eyes?” Felicity panted as Oliver continued to stroke two fingers through her wet sex.  
“I fear my jealously extends to the wind because it gets to pass over your lips,” he hummed as he kissed another pool of wine from just above her navel.  
“I'm jealous of the fabric of your dresses as they fit against your naked body, free from undergarments,” he kissed up her chest, drinking the wine from her body like a cat would taste milk.

“I’m jealous of the food that lingers in your mouth,” he spoke as his thumb rubbed across her lip, dipping in between them to let Felicity suck the sticky wine from it.

“And yet I am only yours,” she whispered as her tongue wet her lips and her hips bucked against his fingers, “you paint me with you lips, your hands are like my clothes and your body passing over my lips more pleasantly than any food, Oliver, I...” She caught he tongue before she spoke without restraint.  
“Felicity, ask of my what you wish and it will be given you, but I beg of you do not hide your words from me,” Oliver pleaded as a strong arm banded across her back brought her up close to his chest.

Felicity felt the weight of his words like a miller's stone and staring into the blue abyss of his eyes she most desperately wanted to believe that Oliver held no guilt in her parents' death.

She wanted to believe him free from blame.  
Innocent.  
So she did.  
Selfishly and without guard Felicity kissed her king with every want and desire she had, fingers spread through hair, tongue greedily lapping against his mouth.

The next moments found Oliver atop her, his thick, pulsing erection dripping with readiness, hovered just above her entrance. Felicity lifted her back off the table and swallowed his cock inside her with a pleasured gasp.

Oliver took the invitation and sunk deeper into her, pressing her body into the table as he held himself on taut arms above her. She felt different tonight, it was not something his words could ever conjure up an explanation for, but Felicity felt so open to him and the secrets she kept threaded just below the surface of her eyes weren’t there any longer.

Her warm, slick walls encased him as Oliver took his time to draw out each thrust until her keen breaths and the throbbing urge down her back goaded him faster and deeper.

Thrust for thrust her hips rose to crush against his base and bury him even deeper inside.

Her name chorused from his lips in hot and fast pants as he never took his eyes away from her. They begged her for an intimacy that would come from one word, one word he wanted to hear drip from her lips. Not shouted but sworn like a secret between them. He needed to hear her speak him name.

“Oliver,” she whispered, reading the need in his eyes as though it were a book.  
He felt her walls clench around him before he leaned down to capture her lips when his name bled a second time from them, just moments before he felt her body tip over the edge and coat his shaft in warm release.

He withdrew seconds before his release came in gushed spurts over the top of the dried trails of red wine. With a shudder Felicity wrapped her hand around his cock and eased him, in slow pumps, through his orgasm.

“I love you my queen,” Oliver breathed, his eyes hung closed as his words barely a whisper.

 _Innocent._  
_He needed to be._

* * *

  
The morning came with scandal.

Just as Moira had organised, the man of cloth visited Oliver's chambers but instead of Oliver he found Laurel asleep next to the Duke.

The Duke, a widowed god fearing man immediately asked for Laurel’s hand to stop the scandal from reaching god. Unable to see any other option, lest the scandal fall upon his shoulders, Quentin agreed, and Laurel was sent away to pack.

There was nothing to be said and nothing further to be done. The papal law had married them and Laurel would travel to his borough to live a life in wifely servitude.

The Duke prostrated himself before Oliver telling of his shamed guilt and begging for forgiveness, but Oliver simply wished him well for the future.

And without any pomp or ceremony, Laurel was gone.

* * *

 

   
**[May 1151]**

Felicity walked alone through the grass shores of the lake looking back towards Verdant. The air seemed quieter here, no buzz from maids or the shuffled feet of military men as they returned from another skirmish a few towns away. Oliver was cleaning down his horse and after bathing he had sworn to meet her across the lake for a quiet walk alone as had become their custom.

Cooper had travelled at her request to London to seek counsel with the Brotherhood, to see if any knew more than what they told. Oliver believed Cooper had travelled to collect some new dresses and would return in a few week’s time.

But for now Felicity walked alone wondering in silence what lay before her. She knew that there were choices to make and paths to choose, but whether her feet or her heart guided her she was unsure.

It was in the thick of this musing that Felicity's eyes stumbled onto Thea bent down against a tree clutching her stomach in silent agony as Roy stood beside her, still dressed in his battle attire, though the front of his shirt was billowing open.

“What is going on?” Felicity asked as hurried steps took her closer  
“She has stomach pains and she won’t eat, no matter how I ask her to,” Roy gritted with fear in his emotions and the tears filling the corners of his eyes.  
It was clear that Thea had not taken Felicity’s advice to put a stop to whatever secret relationship had been simmering between them, but rather she just took to hiding it better.

“My dresses have stopped fitting,” Thea groaned as her pale cheeks hallowed to take a breath, “mother insists that I lose weight.”  
“You should not be here,” Felicity insisted as her attention turned to Roy, “what would her brother, _your Lord_ , say if he found you here with her, like this?” she asked, her eyes drawing attention to the withered demeanour he wore – it was not one of a Lord’s squire, but one of a lover that Oliver would see immediately.  
“I want to stay here with her,” Roy begged.  
“Take your leave Roy, settle your emotions and when you are quite sure you have them in check get her some food and water from the kitchen.”

Roy looked at Thea as the colour started to slowly return to her cheeks.  
“It’s alright,” she smiled softly, “you can go, Oliver shouldn’t see you here like this and he takes a walk here soon.”

“I thought I told you to end it with that boy,” Felicity sighed, it was not a decision she understood – Thea was granted so much power and prestige in life, but she would jeopardise it all for a fleeting expression of a hollow emotion that was nothing more than a mirage in Felicity’s eyes.

Despite how Felicity saw her emotions growing for Oliver she knew the fickle realities of love. Love did not win battles or prove right from wrong. Love did not build armies or move pieces. Love made you weak and vulnerable.

“I love him,” Thea replied resolutely, her eyes hedged in on Felicity’s for her next, brutal words, “while you refuse to admit that you love my brother for reasons that seem as childish as they do pointless, I will not refuse my feelings for Roy.”  
“You are a child Thea, you do not know what love is,” Felicity bit back, unwilling to hear the truth in what the young girl spoke.

 _Felicity didn’t know what love was either._  
She had never had it without motive.  
Never felt it without reason.  
Never imagined it not built on a lie.

“And you do?” Thea snipped, “You told me once that a person would know love when they feel it. While I feel it for Roy, I love him and he loves me and despite everything I am not afraid to admit it.”

Felicity smoothed a hand across Thea’s face, brushing back her hair to feel the hot flush across Thea’s cheeks, this was more than the work of angry words or a warm sun. Her skin was rosy and luminous as well as hot to the touch.

Felicity placed a hesitant hand across her stomach, it was as hard as rock, the skin no doubt pulled taut underneath her dress and the cord at the front of her dress was laced much looser now as her swollen breasts pulled at the seams of the red and gold brocade dress.  
  
“Thea, when was the last time you bled?” Felicity asked apprehensively.  
“I have not yet started,” Thea blushed, all her talk of love and this question seemed to embarrass her.  
“Not even the once?” Felicity urged.  
“There was the once many months ago, but it has not returned. Does that not mean I am lucky?” Thea smiled innocently.

Felicity’s eyes hung closed for a moment as she exhaled a wallowed breath.  
“No,” Felicity whispered as her eyes slowly opened, “it means you are with child.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Kudos and comments (including the constructive criticism ones) are greatly welcomed.
> 
> Twitter @someonesaidcake


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